Agency
Kabul: A powerful earthquake struck a rural, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, killing 1,000 people and injuring 1,500 more in one of the deadliest temblors in decades, the state-run news agency reported. Officials warned that the already grim toll may still rise.
Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6.1 temblor near the Pakistani border, but quakes of that strength can cause severe damage in an area where homes and other buildings are poorly constructed and landslides are common.
India ready to provide all possible relief: Modi
New Delhi: Expressing anguish at the loss of lives and devastation caused by an earthquake in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that India is ready to provide all possible disaster relief material at the earliest.
India stands by the people of Afghanistan, he said.
“Deeply saddened at the news of the devastating earthquake in Afghanistan today. My deepest condolences on the loss of precious lives,” he said in a tweet.
A powerful earthquake struck a rural, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, killing 1,000 people and injuring 1,500 more in one of the country’s deadliest quakes in decades, the state-run news agency reported. Officials warned that the already grim toll may still rise.
”India stands by the people of Afghanistan in their difficult times and is ready to provide all possible disaster relief material at the earliest,” Modi said.
Experts put the depth at just 10 kilometers another factor that could lead to severe destruction. The disaster posed a major test for the Taliban-led government, which seized power last year as the U.S. planned to pull out from the country and end its longest war, two decades after toppling the same insurgents in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Rescuers rushed to the area by helicopter Wednesday, but the response is likely to be complicated since many international aid agencies left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
Reaching rural areas even in the best circumstances remains difficult in Afghanistan, a landlocked nation just smaller than Texas with rutted mountain roadways that may now have sustained significant damage.
Neighboring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department said the quake’s epicentre was in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, some 50 kilometers southwest of the city of Khost.
Buildings were also damaged in Khost province, and tremors were felt some 375 kilometers away in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
