A 6.5 magnitude earthquake shook Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India for a long time on Tuesday evening, shocking residents.
“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.
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.
No casualties or damage were immediately reported, but the quake was felt strongly across much of Afghanistan, Pakistan and even further east in parts of India. .
“So far, thank God, there has been no bad news about casualties. We hope all citizens of the country are safe,” Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted.
He said the country’s health centers had been put on 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.
In Pakistan, residents of the northeastern city of Rawalpindi also fled their homes.
“People ran out of their houses and recited the Koran,” said an AFP correspondent in the city.
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, more than 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 currently in the throes of a humanitarian disaster, made worse by the Taliban takeover of the country 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 hit southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria.