Earthquake Jolts Afghanistan, Pakistan: At Least 13 Dead

By Staff, Agencies

At least 13 people have lost their lives and hundreds injured after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit areas across Afghanistan and Pakistan, with tremors felt as far as the Indian capital New Delhi.

In northwest Pakistan, at least nine people were killed and 44 injured, a government official said on Wednesday. Hospitals in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were put into a state of emergency overnight.

In Afghanistan, at least four people were killed and 50 wounded, a health ministry official told the Reuters news agency.

The earthquake’s epicenter was 40km southeast of the Afghan town of Jurm, near the borders with Pakistan and Tajikistan, the United States Geological Survey [USGS] said on Tuesday.

The quake was felt over an area more than 1,000km wide by some 285 million people in Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre said.

Pakistan’s Meteorological Department put the magnitude slightly higher at 6.8 and later reported a 3.7 magnitude aftershock in the Hindu Kush region along the country’s border with Afghanistan.

Bilal Faizi, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Rescue 1122 service in the northwest of the country, and other officials told the Associated Press news agency that nine people were killed when roofs collapsed in various parts of northwestern Pakistan.

Hospitals in the Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province treated at least 250 patients, 15 of whom suffered minor injuries and more than 200 were unconscious. Fifty-two people were injured in other parts of the province, officials said.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asked the country’s disaster management officials to remain vigilant in the aftermath of the earthquake.

The tremor was felt in the Afghan capital, Kabul, as well as a number of Pakistani cities, including Islamabad and Lahore.

Witnesses also reported feeling the shaking in Indian-administered Kashmir. There, people rushed out of their homes in fear as they recalled two devastating earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria last month, killing more than 50,000 people.

More than 1,000 people were killed last year after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan. In 2005, at least 73,000 people were killed by a 7.6 magnitude quake that struck northern Pakistan.