A massive rescue operation was under way in Afghanistan yesterday, after a strong earthquake and multiple aftershocks collapsed homes onto sleeping families in a remote, mountainous region, killing more than 800 people, Taliban authorities said.
The magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck just before midnight, rattling buildings from Kabul to neighboring Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.
More than 1.2 million people likely felt strong or very strong shaking, said the US Geological Survey, which recorded at least five aftershocks throughout the night.
Photo: Reuters
Casualties and destruction swept across at least five provinces.
Near the epicenter in eastern Afghanistan, about 800 people were killed and 2,500 injured in remote Kunar Province alone, chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
Another 12 people were killed and 255 injured in neighboring Nangarhar Province, while 58 people were injured in Laghman Province.
In Wadir village in the hard-hit district of Nurgal, journalists saw dozens of people join the effort to pull people from the rubble of destroyed or severely damaged homes more than 12 hours after the initial earthquake.
The epicenter was about 27km from the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar Province and about 8km below the surface, the US Geological Survey said.
Such relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in low-rise, mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.
Some of the most severely impacted villages in remote Kunar Province “remain inaccessible due to road blockages,” the UN migration agency said in a statement.
The Taliban authorities and the UN mobilized rescue efforts, with the Afghan Ministry of Defense saying at least 40 flight sorties had so far been carried out.
A member of the agricultural department in Nurgal said people had rushed to clear blocked roads in the hours after the earthquake, but that badly affected areas were remote and had limited telecom networks.
“There is a lot of fear and tension... Children and women were screaming. We had never experienced anything like this in our lives,” Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad said.
Many living in quake-hit villages were among the more than 4 million Afghans who have returned to the nation from Iran and Pakistan in recent years, he said.
“They wanted to build their homes here,” he added.
Nangarhar and Kunar provinces border Pakistan, with the Torkham crossing the site of many waves of Afghan returnees deported or forced to leave, often with no work and nowhere to go.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his condolences to those shared by the Taliban government and several nations.
“I stand in full solidarity with the people of Afghanistan after the devastating earthquake that hit the country earlier today,” Guterres said.
In a post shared by the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened by the significant loss of life caused by the earthquake in the area of eastern Afghanistan.”
Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates. Since 1900, there have been 12 earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 7.0 in northeast Afghanistan, British Geological Survey seismologist Brian Baptie said.
“This scale of the seismic activity, the potential for multi-hazard events and the construction of structures in the region can combine to create significant loss of life in such events,” Baptie said in a statement.
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