An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 killed nearly 280 people in Afghanistan early on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
The quake’s tremors were felt over 500 km (310 miles) by 119 million people across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.
“Strong and long jolts,” a resident of the Afghan capital, Kabul, posted on the EMSC website.
This disaster comes at a time when the international community largely has left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover of the country in 2021 amid the chaotic withdrawal of the US military troops from the longest war in its history.
Photographs widely circulating online showed houses reduced to rubbles and bodies covered in blankets on the ground.
Most of the confirmed deaths were in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Paktika, where 255 people had been killed and over 200 injured, said interior ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi.
“A severe earthquake shook four districts of Paktika province, killing and injuring hundreds of our countrymen and destroying dozens of houses. We urge all aid agencies to send teams to the area immediately to prevent further catastrophe,” Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government tweeted.
An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 shook parts of neighbouring Pakistan early Wednesday. Tremors were felt in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and elsewhere in the eastern Punjab province, the Pakistani Meteorological Department (PMD) department said.
According to PMD, the epicentre of the quake was 44km southwest of Khost in Afghanistan at a depth of 50.8km and its exact time was 1:54 am (local time).
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Rabia Shireen is a Staff Reporter at The Cognate.
