Hindu Kush quake rocks subcontinent
NATURE’S FURY Over 215 people killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with earthquake registering magnitude of 7.5, resulting in buildings shaking from Kabul to Delhi. Officials in both countries declared a situation of emergency.
KABUL: A deadly earthquake hit northern Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday, registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.5 and causing heavy damage in one of the world’s most impoverished and war-torn regions.
At least 215 people were reported killed, with 150 or more of them in Pakistan, and that figure seemed likely to rise significantly, officials in both countries said.
The quake, which struck at 1.39 pm local time, was centered in the Hindu Kush mountain range, about 28 miles southwest of the district of Jurm in Afghanistan and about 160 miles northeast of Kabul, the Afghan capital. The quake’s depth was reported at 132 miles, the US Geological Survey said, and its effects were felt as far away as New Delhi.
Officials in both countries declared emergencies, and military units were ordered to join in the response.
In Pakistan, provincial authorities in the city of Peshawar said that at least 63 people had been killed in surrounding Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Severe tolls were also expected in other remote regions of the north, including in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas, but no immediate confirmation of exact numbers was available because a breakdown in communications systems.
Reverberations were felt across several provinces in Afghanistan, particularly in northern areas that had already been in turmoil because of a widespread Taliban offensive. There, too, the shaking damaged communication lines, making initial damage difficult to assess.
Hospital officials in Swat said at least 250 people had been brought for treatment by Monday evening.
Landslides were reported in the regions of Gilgit and Chitral, as boulders fell on to the roads, cutting off many areas with rest of the country. In Punjab province, 10 people were wounded when a school wall collapsed in Sargodha.
In Afghanistan, the country’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, called an emergency meeting of senior officials to respond to the disaster. “This is the strongest earthquake that has happened in our country in recent years,” Abdullah said, warning of aftershocks. NYT