Earthquake in Afghanistan and Pakistan: at least 12 people confirmed dead

At least 12 people died and 204 others were injured Afghanistan and Pakistanafter a earthquake of magnitude 6.5 shook the border between the two countries on Tuesday, in the Afghan Hindu Kush area.

Specifically, the three victims in Afghanistan, including a minor, were registered in Laghman and Takhar provinces, according to Public Health Ministry spokesman, Sharafat Zaman Amar, who warned that “there may be more victimsbecause the earthquake was very strong.

In Pakistan, however, five men, two women and two children were killed. All of them were found in the northeastern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a disaster management authority told Pakistan’s Geo TV.

As specified by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the earthquake was registered at 22:17 local time (16:47 GMT) on Tuesday, with its epicenter about 40 kilometers from the city of Jurm, in the northeastern province of Badakhshan. It is precisely an area close to the huge Hindu Kush mountain rangewhich is a center of great seismic activity and the usual point of origin of earthquakes in the region.

Without going further, at the end of last July a similar earthquake measuring 5.9 which struck the eastern provinces of Paktika and Khost, on the border with Pakistan, caused the death of over a thousand people and injured around 1,500, as well as the destruction of hundreds of homes .

The country also suffered one of the largest earthquake disasters in February 1998, when two earthquakes measuring 5.9 and 6 killed about 4,000 people. A few months later, in late May, another magnitude 7 earthquake shook the area again, claiming some 5,000 lives.

The last major earthquake in Afghanistan: more than 1,000 dead

More than 1,000 people died and hundreds were injured in a powerful earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan on July 20, 2022. It was the worst earthquake in the region since 2005.

The magnitude 5.9 earthquake occurred in a remote area in the east of the country, near the border with Pakistan, where the population already lives in very precarious conditions. The earthquake fatally surprised people in their sleep. And it has been heard as far as India.

The quake was reported about 46 kilometers from the city of Khost, near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, according to the US Geological Survey agency. While most of the deaths were reported in Paktika province, Barmala, Ziruk, Naka and Gayan districts were the hardest hit by the quake.

Although the earthquake was reported to have had a magnitude of 5.9, the Pakistan Meteorological Department calculated the earthquake to have reached 6.1.

IT​