Kabul - A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck northern Afghanistan on Tuesday evening, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), killing at least one person in neighbouring Pakistan and causing strong shaking across the north in both countries.
Shaking was felt over an area 1 000km wide by approximately 285 million people in Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, according to the EMSC.
The tremor was deep, 194km, and its epicentre was in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the remote northern Afghan province of Badakhshan.
Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, many families were out of their homes celebrating Nowruz, the Persian New Year, when the quake struck.
Those indoors also quickly left their houses and apartments.
"They just fled without wearing shoes, just carrying their children in their hands," an AFP correspondent said.
The Afghan authorities and aid workers said strong shaking was felt in Badakhshan and across other northern areas. A spokesperson for Red Cross said they had no immediate reports of damages from Badakhshan's capital but they were still checking on other areas.
Mahzudeen Ahmadi, the head of Badakhshan's information department told Reuters they were also checking the province for any casualties, but had no reports yet.
"We felt a strong earthquake, according to primary information the main place (affected) was Yamgan District," he said.
Some of mountainous Badakhshan's remote villages can be difficult to reach and do not have access to phone or internet.
More than 1 000 people were killed and tens of thousands made homeless after a 5.9-magnitude quake – the deadliest in Afghanistan in nearly a quarter of a century – struck the impoverished province of Paktika on June 22 of last year.
Afghanistan is in the grips of a humanitarian disaster made worse by the Taliban takeover of the country in August 2021.
Pakistan
In Pakistan, a 13-year old girl died when a wall in her home collapsed on her, and 34 people were injured in the northern district of Swat, police officer Shafiullah Gandapur told Reuters.
Frightened people fled their homes as the tremor hit.
"People ran out of their houses and were reciting the Koran," said an AFP correspondent in Pakistan's Rawalpindi.
Ikhlaq Kazmi, a retired professor in the city, said his entire house started shaking.
"The children started shouting that there is an earthquake," he said. "We all ran out."
In the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a 90m-long wall around a police station collapsed, according to a police district spokesman, but did not cause any casualties.
In Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir – the site of a deadly earthquake in 2005 in which more than 80 000 people were killed – people ran out of their homes, crying and reciting holy verses, according to a Reuters witness.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered the National Disaster Management Authority to be ready to deal with any emergency.
India
In the provincial capital, Faizabad, 29-year-old Ashraf Nael said he was at home on Tuesday evening when the windows of his family home began rattling strongly for about a minute.
"My brothers and sisters all ran outside ... we live in a concrete house, those houses which are made from mud might have been damaged," he said.
Shaking could be felt as far as the Indian capital, New Delhi.
Large parts of South Asia are seismically active because a tectonic plate known as the Indian plate is pushing north into the Eurasian plate. The region is frequently hit by earthquakes – especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
REUTERS and AFP
