A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit a remote and mountainous area of northeast Afghanistan yesterday morning, shaking buildings in the capital and as far away as Pakistan, Tajikistan and India.
The earthquake in Badakhshan province was about 300km northeast of the capital, Kabul, where residents felt shaking buildings and ran outside their homes, and some windows were shattered. There were no immediate casualty reports.
"It was a very strong earthquake," said Agha Noor Kemtoz, the provincial police chief of Badakhshan, which shares a border with Pakistan, Tajikistan and China. "My room was shaking and the light was swinging back and forth."
The US Geological Survey said the 6.2-quake was centered 60km south of the provincial capital Faizabad and hit at 8:05am.
Damage reports from northeastern Afghanistan are often slow to trickle in because of the region's remoteness and a lack of communication facilities.
The quake was felt across northern Pakistan, including in the capital Islamabad, 450km away. It was also felt in Tajikistan and in the Indian and Pakistan-administered portions of Kashmir, where a severe earthquake in October 2005 left tens of thousands dead and caused widespread destruction.
In Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, residents dashed out of shops and homes when the temblor struck yesterday, and at least one boy was injured as he fell while running out of his school in the town of Dherkot.
In the town of Chakothi, on the Line of Control between Pakistani and Indian Kashmir, terrified residents recited verses from the Quran after evacuating buildings, local dentist Imtiaz Kazmi said.
Badakhshan -- the most remote area in Afghanistan -- is home to the towering mountains of the Hindu Kush, and is a region prone to earthquakes.
A 6.7-magnitude quake struck Badakhshan in December 2005, killing at least five children. That quake was centered about 100km southeast of Faizabad.
In 1998, a 6.9-magnitude quake hit near Faizabad, triggering massive mud slides and flooding that left more than 5,000 people dead.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
RSS