An earthquake in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border early Monday morning killed at least six people and injured nine, the Afghan government said.
“An earthquake struck at 2:30 am local time in Kabul, Laghman, Kunar and Nangarhar provinces,” Afghan Deputy Minister for Natural Disasters Sharafuddin Muslim said.
According to the same source, quoted by the AFP news agency, “six people died and nine were injured in Kunar province”, in northeastern Afghanistan.
The official added that authorities are “collecting information from other areas to find out if there are more victims and to assess the damage”.
The earthquake had a magnitude of 5.3, according to the United States Seismological Institute (USGS).
This earthquake comes three months after Afghanistan’s worst earthquake in more than two decades, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake in the southeast on June 22 that killed more than 1,000 people and left thousands homeless.
Afghanistan is often hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush region, which lies at the intersection of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
Shakes often have disastrous consequences, due to the weak resistance of Afghan houses in rural areas.
In October 2015, a powerful earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale struck the Hindu Kush Mountains, which swept across Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing more than 380 people in both countries.
In recent months, Afghanistan has also been hit by flash floods that have killed about 200 people and destroyed thousands of homes in several provinces.
These disasters pose a huge logistical challenge to the Taliban government, which has cut itself off from much of the world by establishing an Islamic fundamentalist regime.
Source: DN
