6.5 magnitude tremors

Status: 03/21/2023 10:08 p.m

A 6.5 magnitude earthquake has hit the northern Afghan-Pakistani border region. The first reports speak of dead and injured. However, the exact extent is still unclear.

A powerful earthquake has shaken parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The US earthquake monitoring station USGS and the German Geo Research Center (GFZ) Potsdam gave the strength of the tremors as 6.5. The epicenter was in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan near the village of Jurm at a depth of almost 200 kilometers. The earth shook for at least 30 seconds.

The first reports from the authorities in the affected countries speak of several fatalities and injuries. The exact extent of the consequences of the earthquake is still unclear. According to a local civil protection agency, at least nine people were killed and at least 40 others were injured in the northern Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, a police spokesman told Archyde.com news agency that 150 people were injured in Swat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone. A spokesman for the Afghan government said two people had been killed in the province of Laghman there.

Heavy earthquakes repeatedly occur in the Hindu Kush region and neighboring countries, where the Arabian, Indian and Eurasian plates meet. Since many houses in poor Afghanistan are poorly built, the tremors often cause serious damage. This time too, eyewitnesses observed that many people fled their homes following the earthquake began and that walls swayed.

A devastating earthquake killed more than 1,000 people in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the summer of 2022. It was the deadliest earthquake in the country in almost a quarter of a century. Tens of thousands of people became homeless at the time.