The 6.0 magnitude quake hit villages near the border with Pakistan late Sunday. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan and LONDON — The death toll from the earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, which all but destroyed several villages, rose on Tuesday to at least 1,411 people, a government spokesperson said. Another 3,124 were injured in the 6.0 magnitude quake, which struck just before midnight on Sunday, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson, said on social media.
“Rescue operations are still underway in all the affected areas today,” Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy spokesperson, said on Tuesday. “Dozens of commandos have been airlifted to areas where planes could not land to pull out the injured from the rubble and transport them to a suitable location.”
Amid rescue efforts, another 5.2 magnitude earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday about 20 miles northeast of Jalalabad, according to the USGS. Shah Mahmood, a Taliban official in Nangarhar Province, said prior to that aftershock that the quake on Sunday destroyed some 8,000 houses. Emergency responders have yet to reach some villages, where they fear there may be more dead and injured under the rubble, he said. Sunday’s powerful earthquake’s epicenter was about 17 miles east of Jalalabad, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Almost all of the deaths were in Kunar Province, officials said in a statement shared Monday by Zabihullah Mujahid, a government spokesperson. Others were killed in Nangarhar Province, said Mufti Abdul Matin Qani, spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior. Deadly earthquakes have struck Afghanistan several times in recent years, including a 5.9 magnitude quake in June 2022 and a 6.3 magnitude one in October 2023. The death toll for each of those quakes rose to over 1,000 people, local officials said in their aftermaths. Earthquakes are common in both eastern and western Afghanistan, where the India plate and the Eurasia plate intersect underneath the Hindu Kush mountains range, according to USGS…. Source: abcnews.go.com
