Afghan deaths at 1,000 after quake

AN EARTHQUAKE in the east of Afghanistan has killed 1,000 people and hurt 1,500 more, the country’s state-run news agency said.

The latest figure came from the Bakhtar News Agency as officials tried to help those affected by yesterday’s disaster.

Rescue efforts are likely to be complicated since many international aid agencies left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover of the country last year and the chaotic withdrawal of the US military from the longest war in its history.

Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6.1 earthquake near the Pakistani border, but quakes of that strength can cause severe damage in an area where homes and other buildings are poorly constructed and landslides are common.

Experts put the depth at just six miles – another factor that could increase the impact.

Neighbouring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department said the quake’s epicentre was in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, some 31 miles south-west of the city of Khost.

Buildings were also damaged in Khost province and tremors were felt as far away as the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

Footage from Paktika showed men carrying people in blankets to waiting helicopters while others were treated on the ground.

One resident could be seen receiving IV fluids while sitting in a plastic chair outside the rubble of his home and still more were sprawled on stretchers.

Images showed residents picking through clay bricks and other rubble from destroyed stone houses, some of whose roofs or walls had caved in.

The death toll makes it the deadliest quake since 2002, when a 6.1 magnitude quake killed about 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan immediately after the US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban government.

Afghans evacuate casualties injured in an earthquake in the province of Paktika in the east of the country.