KABUL, June 22 (Reuters) – A magnitude 6.1 earthquake killed 950 people in Afghanistan early Wednesday, disaster management officials said. More than 600 people were injured and the death toll is expected to rise. remote mountain villages.
Photos in the Afghan media show houses destroyed in ruins, with bodies wrapped in blankets lying on the ground.
Helicopters have been deployed in rescue efforts to reach the wounded and bring medical supplies and food, Interior Ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi said.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
I’m registering
“The death toll is likely to rise as some of the villages are in remote areas in the mountains and it will take some time to gather details.”
Wednesday’s earthquake was the deadliest since 2002. It struck about 44 km (27 miles) from the southeastern city of Khost, near the border with Pakistan, the US Geological Survey (USGC) said.
Most of the confirmed deaths are in the eastern province of Paktika, where 255 people died and more than 200 were injured, Ayubi added. In the province of Host, 25 died and 90 were taken to hospital.
Haibatullah Ahundzada, the supreme leader of the ruling Taliban, expressed his condolences in a statement.
Organizing a rescue operation could be a major test for the Taliban, which seized the country in August and was cut off from major international aid over sanctions.
The quake affected about 119 million people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, the EMSC said on Twitter, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties in Pakistan.
People transport the wounded in a helicopter after a strong earthquake, in the province of Paktika, Afghanistan, June 22, 2022, in this screenshot taken from a video. BAKHTAR INFORMATION AGENCY / Distribution through REUTERS
Read more
The EMSC set the magnitude of the quake at 6.1, although the USGC said it was 5.9.
An additional challenge for the Afghan authorities is the recent floods in many regions, which the disaster agency said killed 11, injured 50 and blocked sections of the highway.
The disaster comes as Afghanistan struggles with a severe economic crisis since the Taliban took power after US-led international forces withdrew after two decades of war.
In response to the Taliban takeover, many countries have imposed sanctions on Afghanistan’s banking sector and cut billions of dollars in development aid.
However, humanitarian aid continues, with international agencies such as the United Nations.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said Afghanistan had asked humanitarian agencies to help with the rescue effort and teams had been sent to the quake-hit area.
A spokesman for Afghanistan’s foreign ministry said he would welcome international aid. Neighboring Pakistan has said it is working to expand aid.
Large parts of South Asia are seismically active as a tectonic plate known as the Indian Plate is pushed north into the Eurasian Plate. Read more
In 2015, an earthquake struck the remote northeast of Afghanistan, killing several hundred people in Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan.
An earthquake struck western Afghanistan in January, killing more than 20 people.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
I’m registering
Report by Shubham Kaliya in Bengaluru and Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul and Gibran Ahmad in Peshawar; Additional reports from Alasdair Pal in Delhi; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Edited by Robert Birsel and Clarence Fernandez
Our standards: Thomson Reuters’ principles of trust.
Add Comment