Afghanistan earthquake leaves at least 255 dead

KABUL, Afghanistan – An earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, killing at least 255 people, authorities said.

Information remained scarce about the 6.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Paktika province, but it comes as the international community has largely left Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the country last year amid a chaotic US military withdrawal from the longest war in its history.

This is likely to complicate any relief efforts for this country of 38 million people.

The state-run Bakhtar news agency, citing the death toll, said rescuers had arrived by helicopter. The director general of the news agency, Abdul Wahed Rayan, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses had been destroyed in Paktika, and dozens of people were believed to be trapped under the rubble.

Footage from Paktika province near the Pakistani border showed the victims being flown by helicopter from the area. Pictures widely circulated online from the county showed destroyed stone houses, with residents clearing mud bricks and other rubble.

Bakhtar posted footage of a resident receiving intravenous fluids from a plastic chair outside the ruins of his home and others lying on stretchers.

Afghans look at the devastation caused by an earthquake in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika

“A violent earthquake shook four districts of Paktika province, killing and wounding hundreds of our compatriots and destroying dozens of homes,” Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, wrote separately on Twitter. “We urge all relief agencies to immediately send teams to the area to prevent further disaster.”

Local officials in just one district of neighboring Khost province said the quake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 95, while warning that the death toll would rise without urgent government help.

From Kabul, Prime Minister Muhammad Hassan Akhund held an emergency meeting at the Presidential Palace to coordinate relief efforts for victims in Paktika and Khost.

The UN Resident Coordinator in Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, expressed his condolences for the victims and said that the UN agencies are responding to the devastation caused by the earthquake.

Evacuation of injured Afghans due to earthquake in Paktika province, eastern Afghanistan

“Reply is on the way,” he wrote on Twitter.

The neighboring Pakistan Meteorological Department estimated the quake with a magnitude of 6.1. The quake was felt in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and elsewhere in the eastern Punjab province. Timur Khan, a spokesperson for the district’s disaster management, said some remote areas in Pakistan have seen reports of damage to homes near the Afghan border, but it was not immediately clear if it was due to rain or earthquake.

In a statement, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif offered his condolences over the earthquake, saying that his country would provide assistance to the Afghan people.

The European seismological agency, EMSC, said 119 million people felt the quake tremor more than 500 km away in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

At least 90 homes were destroyed in Paktika and some people are believed to be still trapped under the rubble

Mountainous Afghanistan and the larger region of South Asia along the Hindu Kush, where the Indian tectonic plate collides with the Eurasian plate in the north, have long been subject to devastating earthquakes. Poor construction of homes, hospitals and other buildings puts them at risk of collapsing in earthquakes, while landslides are still common across the mountains of Afghanistan.

In 2015, a major earthquake that hit the northeast of the country killed more than 200 people in Afghanistan and neighboring northern Pakistan. A similar 6.1 earthquake in 2002 killed about 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan. And in 1998, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake and its aftermath in remote northeastern Afghanistan killed at least 4,500 people.

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