Crowds of men, women and children stood in the streets, far away from tall buildings (AFP)
Herat:
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck western Afghanistan on Saturday, killing 14 and injuring 78, officials said. They predicted the number could rise amid reports of landslides and collapsing buildings.
The United States Geological Survey said the epicenter was 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the region’s largest city, Herat, and was followed by five aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.5, 4.7, 6.3, 5 .9 and 4.6.
Crowds of residents and shopkeepers fled buildings in the city around 11 a.m. (06:30 GMT) as the earthquakes began, leaving 25 injured and one dead, according to a Taliban government spokesman.
“We were in our office and suddenly the building started shaking,” 45-year-old Herat resident Bashir Ahmad told AFP. “Wall plasters started falling down and the walls developed cracks. Some walls and parts of the building collapsed.”
“I can’t contact my family, network connections are down. I’m too worried and scared, it’s been horrific,” he said.
National Disaster Management Authority spokesman Mullah Jan Sayeq told AFP that the first count was “provisional” and he feared it would rise because “landslides have also occurred in the rural and mountainous areas”.
“Currently we do not have all the information and details,” he said.
“Disaster potentially widespread”
Crowds of women and children stood in the wide streets of Herat, far away from tall buildings, in the moments after the first earthquake and aftershocks that lasted for more than an hour.
Hundreds of fatalities were possible, according to a preliminary report from the USGS.
“Significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread. Past events at this alert level required a response at a regional or national level,” the report said.
USGS had previously reported the magnitude of the first earthquake as 6.2. It had a shallow depth of only 14 kilometers, it said.
Herat – 120 kilometers east of the border with Iran – is considered the cultural capital of Afghanistan.
It is the capital of Herat province and is home to an estimated 1.9 million residents, according to 2019 World Bank data.
In June last year, more than a thousand people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless after a magnitude 5.9 earthquake – the deadliest in Afghanistan in almost a quarter of a century – struck the impoverished province of Paktika.
In March this year, thirteen people were killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by a magnitude 6.5 earthquake that struck near Jurm in northeastern Afghanistan.
The country is regularly struck by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush Mountains, which lie near the intersection of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
Afghanistan is already in dire humanitarian crisis, following the widespread withdrawal of foreign aid since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
