Hundreds killed, injured in Afghanistan earthquake

At least 250 people have died in an earthquake that struck Afghanistan, the Taliban-run Bakhtar state news agency reports, as rescuers comb the rubble of homes in a desperate hunt for survivors.

The 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck northeastern Afghanistan, in the rugged, mountainous Jalalabad area close to the border with Pakistan around midnight local time, local officials said on Monday.

It was at a depth of 10km, the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) said.

Early reports showed 30 dead in a single village, the health ministry said, but added that accurate casualty figures had yet to be gathered in an area of scattered hamlets with a long history of earthquakes and flooding.

“The number of casualties and injuries is high, but since the area is difficult to access, our teams are still on site,” health ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman said in a statement.

Hundreds of injured were taken to hospital, said Najibullah Hanif, the provincial information head, with figures likely to rise as reports arrived from remote areas with few roads.

Rescuers were working in several districts of the mountainous province where the midnight quake hit at a depth of 10km, to level homes of mud and stone on the border with Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, officials said.

Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.

A series of earthquakes in its west killed more than 1000 people last year, underscoring the vulnerability of one of the world’s poorest countries to natural disasters.

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Afghanistan on October 7, 2023, followed by strong aftershocks. The Taliban government estimated that at least 4000 people died.

The UN gave a far lower death toll of about 1500. It was the deadliest natural disaster to strike Afghanistan in recent memory.

with dpa