A powerful earthquake struck a rural, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border.
At least 920 people were killed in an earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan early today(22), officials said.
The Taliban’s state-run news agency reported more than 920 people were killed and more than 600 more injured. They cited the deputy state minister for natural disaster management, Mawlavi Sharfuddin Muslim. It was not possible to immediately confirm that number, because the earthquake hit remote areas.
The earthquake struck about 44 kilometres (27 miles) from the city of Khost, near the Pakistani border, at a depth of 51 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said. The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre said shaking was felt by about 119 million people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
The head of the Taliban administration’s natural disaster ministry, Mohammad Nassim Haqqani, said the majority of deaths were in the province of Paktika, though fatalities were also reported in Khost and in Nangarhar province.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties in Pakistan.
A powerful 5.9 magnitude earthquake shook eastern Afghanistan overnight, causing homes of mud-brick and cinder block to collapse over sleeping families, adding a new emergency to a country that has already endured much suffering.
A major earthquake in 2015 that struck the country’s northeast killed over 200 people in Afghanistan and neighbouring northern Pakistan. A 6.1 magnitude quake in 2002 killed about 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan. And in 1998, a 6.1 magnitude quake and subsequent tremors in Afghanistan’s northeast killed at least 4,500 people.
