Another powerful quake shakes Afghanistan
At least 1,000 dead days after earlier temblors
A powerful earthquake struck Herat province in Afghanistan near the border with Iran early Wednesday, several days after two major quakes in the same area killed more than 1,000 people.
The magnitude 6.3 temblor struck northwestern Afghanistan at 5:22 a.m. at a depth of about 6 miles, according to the US Geological Survey. The epicenter was just outside Herat City, the provincial capital and one of the country’s cultural and economic hubs.
At least 120 people were injured in the quake Wednesday and one was killed, according to Dr. Mohammad Asif Kabir, head of Herat province’s emergency health committee. Most of those hurt were from Herat City and Zinda Jan, the district most badly affected Saturday.
The latest quake sent people in Herat City running out of their homes for the second time in five days. Thousands of others had already been sleeping outside in tents, or in makeshift shelters made of blankets and tarp, still terrified from the dual quakes that rocked the area Saturday.
“When my body started shaking I realized it was another quake,” said Nadar, 52, who goes by one name, and who had been sleeping in his yard. “Everyone sleeping outside was shouting and screaming.”
Inside the Arg Hotel, a team of New York Times journalists felt the walls shake violently and the building sway. Bright lights illuminating the hallway flickered and went dark as guests ran out of the building. When the shaking subsided, parts of the concrete walls had broken off, and pieces of the ceiling in some rooms had crashed to the floor.
Mohammad Reza, a doctor in Herat, had been sleeping in his house, hoping the aftershocks from Saturday’s quakes had finally subsided.
“I thought that it was all over,” said Reza, 28. When he woke to the walls shaking, he sprinted from the house barefoot, through the yard and to the alley outside.
“I was so scared and shocked, now I feel dizzy and I’m just throwing up,” he added.
The Saturday quakes, both of which were also 6.3 magnitude, caused mud-brick homes in several districts to come crashing down. At least seven tremors followed. There was optimism that the Wednesday quake would be less destructive. The buildings in Herat City are mostly made from concrete — not mud-brick, as in districts that saw the worst devastation Saturday — and many people were sleeping outside.
But the historic city, which once served as a center of medieval Islamic culture, home to poets, scholars, and painters, the ruins of ancient architecture did not survive the quake unscathed.
At the Musalla of Gawhar Shah, a 15th-century Islamic religious complex, the top of one of five minarets still standing was partially damaged by the quake, according to Farid Ahmad Ayoubi, the director of information for Herat province. The Great Mosque of Herat, one of the oldest mosques in the region, widely considered a masterpiece of Islamic architecture and recognizable by its vibrant blue minarets, was also damaged, he said.
At Herat’s regional public hospital, ambulances raced in and out of the gate Wednesday morning carrying dozens of injured people.
Outside the intensive care unit, dozens of doctors and nurses stood at a makeshift triage station and swarmed the ambulances as each new wave of patients arrived. They bandaged bloodied arms and legs, rolled out IVs on rickety metal stands, and tried to calm people crying with fear as their loved ones were treated.
For many in Herat, the quake Wednesday was a terrifying reminder of the unease that continues to plague the city after the initial quake last weekend.
Along the grassy median of a main road running through the city, dozens of people lay inside makeshift tents they had constructed with clothes, rugs, and string. Many had slept there since Saturday, fearing the aftershocks that have rolled through the city.