At least 300 people perish in powerful earthquake in Afghanistan

Hundreds of houses were destroyed and sadly 300 civilians were killed and over 500 injuredHibatullah Akhundzada, the country’s supreme leader, said in a statement, adding that the toll was likely to worsen further.

Many houses have been damaged and people are trapped insidedeputy government spokesman Bilal Karimi told AFP.

We call on aid agencies to provide immediate relief to earthquake victims to avert a humanitarian catastrophehe previously tweeted.

The earthquake, with a magnitude of 5.9, occurred at a depth of 10 km around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, very close to the border with Pakistan, according to the American Seismological Institute (USGS).

A second quake of magnitude 4.5 hit almost the same place at the same time, according to theUSGS.

According to Yaqub Manzor, a tribal leader from Paktika, many of the injured came from Giyan district in the province and were taken to hospital by ambulances and also helicopters.

Local markets are closed and people have rushed (to help) to the affected areashe told AFP by telephone.

Photos posted on social networks show collapsed houses in the streets of a village, in this poor and difficult to access rural region.

Videos also show residents of the affected areas loading injured people into a helicopter.

Limited in number and capacity for a long time, the emergency services in Afghanistan are unsuited to dealing alone with a major natural disaster.

The earthquake was felt in several provinces of the region, and also in the capital Kabul, located about 200 km north of the epicenter of the earthquake.

It was also in neighboring Pakistan, but no damage or casualties were immediately reported there.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said deeply pained by this tragedy and indicated that the Pakistani authorities were working to support their Afghan counterparts.

The European Union is monitoring the situation (…), and stands ready to coordinate and provide emergency assistance, also tweeted his special envoy to Afghanistan, Tomas Niklasson. The UN has also said it is studying aid needs.

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range which lies at the junction between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

These disasters can be particularly devastating due to the weak resilience of rural Afghan homes.

In October 2015, a powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.5 hit the Hindu Kush range, straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing more than 380 people in these two countries.

Among the Afghan victims were 12 young girls, trampled in a panic as they tried to get out of their tottering school.

Since coming to power in Kabul last August, Afghanistan has been plunged into a serious financial and humanitarian crisis, caused by the freezing of billions of assets held abroad and the sudden halt in international aid which carried the country at arm’s length for 20 years, and which is now coming back in dribs and drabs.