- A tragic earthquake has killed at least 280 people and left scores injured in Afghanistan, as per the country’s state news agency. Pictures display landslides and ruined houses in eastern Paktika province, in which rescuers are scrambling to deal with the injured.
- In far-off regions, helicopters had been ferrying sufferers to hospitals. The nearby Bakhtar News Agency stated the demise toll was possible to rise, including extra than six hundred people were injured. The quake struck approximately 44km (27 miles) from the south-eastern city of Khost quickly after 01:30 local time (21:00 Tuesday GMT).
- “Unfortunately, the previous night there has been an intense earthquake in 4 districts of Paktika province, which killed and injured hundreds of our countrymen and destroyed dozens of houses,” authorities spokesman Bilal Karimi tweeted. “We urge all aid organizations to send groups to the location right away to prevent further catastrophe.”
- Taliban officers have called for aid organizations to hurry to the affected regions in the nation’s east. Most of the casualties up to now we’re in the Gayan and Barmal districts in Paktika, a local doctor instructed the BBC. Local media site Etilaat-e Roz said an entire village in Gayan has been destroyed.
- Tremors have been felt throughout more than 500km of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, as per the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre, quoted by Reuters. The centre stated that witnesses had said feeling the quake in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, in addition to Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. However, there had been no instant reports of casualties, and the earthquake triggered little harm in Pakistan, as per BBC Urdu.
- The earthquake – which hit the mountainous country all through the early hours as many humans slept – was a value 6.1 quake at an intensity of a few 51km, as per the United States Geological Survey. Afghanistan is liable to quakes, as it is positioned in a tectonically active region, over some of the fault traces consisting of the Chaman fault, the Hari Rud fault, the Central Badakhshan fault and the Darvaz fault.
- Earthquakes have a tendency to cause enormous harm in Afghanistan, in which there are numerous rural regions where dwellings are risky or poorly built. Decades of warfare have made it tough for the impoverished country to enhance its safety towards earthquakes and other natural disasters – regardless of efforts by aid organizations to reinforce a few buildings over the years.
- In the last 10 years, more than 7,000 people had been killed in earthquakes in the country, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reviews. There is a mean of 560 deaths a year from earthquakes.
