A powerful earthquake killed at least 920 people in Afghanistan and injured dozens, Taliban authorities said yesterday, with the death toll expected to rise as rescuers reach remote areas.
The magnitude 5.9 quake was centered in the east, near the border with Pakistan.
Abdul Wahid Rayan, director of the official Bakhtar news agency, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses were destroyed in Paktika Province and dozens of people are believed trapped under the rubble.
Photo: AP
Afghan government spokesman Bilal Karimi told reporters that “many houses were damaged and people trapped inside.”
Yaqub Manzor, a local tribal leader, said that survivors were mobilizing to help those affected.
“The local markets are closed, and all the people have rushed to the affected areas,” he told Agence France-Presse by telephone.
Photographs and video clips posted on social media showed badly damaged mud houses in rural areas.
Some footage showed residents loading injured people into a military helicopter.
Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes — especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
Scores of people were killed and injured in January, when two quakes struck rural areas in the western province of Badghis, damaging hundreds of buildings.
In 2015, more than 380 people were killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan when a magnitude 7.5 earthquake ripped across the two countries, with the bulk of the deaths in Pakistan.
The latest earthquake came at a time when Afghanistan is battling a severe humanitarian disaster, worsened by the Taliban takeover of the country.
Aid agencies and the UN say that Afghanistan this year needs billions of US dollars to tackle the crisis.
Aid agencies have particularly stressed the need for greater disaster preparedness in Afghanistan, which remains extremely susceptible to recurring earthquakes, floods and landslides.
Additional reporting by AP
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