6.5 magnitude earthquake in Afghanistan and Pakistan

There has been a severe earthquake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Several people died and many more were injured. The tremors were also felt in other countries. The extent of the damage is not yet foreseeable.

A severe earthquake in the Afghan-Pakistani border region left dead and many injured overnight. The exact extent was still unclear.

In Pakistan, local authorities in the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa spoke of at least nine dead and more than 40 injured. People died as roofs collapsed on them in various places in north-west Pakistan, said a spokesman for Pakistan’s emergency services, Bilal Faizi. Dozens more were injured. More than 100 people were hospitalized in the Swat Valley in Pakistan’s Northwest Province, most of whom have since been released.

A police spokesman had previously told Reuters news agency that 150 people were injured in Swat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone.

At least two dead in Afghanistan

The earthquake triggered landslides in some mountain regions, causing traffic delays. Taimoor Khan, spokesman for the Disaster Management Agency in north-western Pakistan provinces, said at least 19 adobe houses in remote areas had collapsed. One is still busy gathering information about the damage. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he had instructed civil protection workers to be prepared for any situation.

In Afghanistan, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health, Sharafat Saman Amar, employed by the Taliban, spoke of at least two dead and 20 injured. “Unfortunately, since the quake was so powerful, there could be more casualties,” he said.

According to the Pakistan Meteorological Authority, the earthquake in the capital Islamabad had a magnitude of 6.8. The US earthquake monitor located the epicenter in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan in the town of Jurm and gave the location a magnitude of 6.5. The German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam called a magnitude of 6.5 and located the earthquake at a depth of around 180 kilometers.

Again and again severe earthquakes in the Hindu Kush

Videos were shared on social networks showing local residents in the southern cities of Shymkent and Taras of the Central Asian country running excitedly into the streets. In northern India, too, people rushed onto the streets in panic, as The Times of India wrote. The tremors lasted 30 seconds. Nothing was initially reported about damage.

Heavy earthquakes repeatedly occur in the Hindu Kush region and neighboring countries, where the Arabian, Indian and Eurasian plates meet. In the summer of 2022, more than 1,000 people died in a devastating earthquake in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The earthquake brings back memories of the severe earthquakes in Turkey and northern Syria in early February. More than 50,000 people died in Turkey alone. Around two million people had to be accommodated in emergency shelters such as tents and containers. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, around 6,800 people died in the tremors across Syria.