A magnitude 6.5 earthquake shook Afghanistan for a long time on Tuesday evening, killing at least two people, including a child, but also Pakistan and certain parts of India and stupefied the inhabitants.
Two people, including a child, were killed in the eastern province of Laghman, Shafiullah Rahimi, spokesman for Afghanistan’s disaster management ministry, told AFP.
The earthquake’s epicenter was located in northeastern Afghanistan near the town of Jorm, on the border with Pakistan and Tajikistan, and at a depth of 187 km, according to the American seismological institute USGS.
“It was terrifying. I had never seen such a tremor in my life,” Khatera, a resident of the Afghan capital, told AFP.
With her family, the 50-year-old rushed out of her apartment on the fifth floor of a residential building in Kabul.
Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said health centers across the country had been put on high alert.
It was 9:17 p.m. local time in Afghanistan when the earthquake lasting at least 30 seconds occurred.
In Afghanistan, many families had left their homes to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year, when the tremors were felt.
An AFP journalist said several of his neighbors had fled with their children from their building in central Kabul.
“They fled without shoes, carrying their children in their hands,” he said.
Kabul trader Noor Ahmad Hanifi pitched three large tents in the street to shelter his family and neighbors for the night after fleeing his home.
“When the earthquake started, I thought maybe I was dizzy from my long trip,” said the father, who had just driven thirteen hours.
– “Running out”
“But when I heard the sound of doors, windows and glass, I understood that it was an earthquake”.
In Pakistan, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered the National Disaster Management Authority to be ready for any emergency.
At least 180 people with “minor injuries” have been taken to hospitals in Pakistan’s northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, senior government official Shahidullah Khan told AFP.
“People ran out of their houses and recited the Koran,” said an AFP correspondent in the city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan.
“The whole house started shaking,” said Ikhlaq Kazmi, a retired teacher in the northern Pakistani town. “The children started shouting that there was an earthquake. We all ran out.”
The earthquake occurred in the mountainous region of the Hindu Kush, which is near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates, said the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC), which also recorded a magnitude of 6. ,5.
On June 22, 2022 in Afghanistan, over 1,000 people were killed and tens of thousands were left homeless after a magnitude 5.9 earthquake.
This earthquake, which struck the poor province of Paktika, is the deadliest in the country for nearly a quarter of a century.
Afghanistan is in the grip of a humanitarian disaster, made worse by the takeover of the country by the Taliban in August 2021.
The international funding on which this South Asian country depended dried up after the Taliban took power and assets held abroad were frozen.
Last month, more than 55,000 people were killed by an earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria.
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21/03/2023 21:41:35 – Kabul (AFP) © 2023 AFP
