Officials have warned that the death toll is likely to rise. The epicenter was reported below the Pacific Ocean floor, however; no tsunami alert was issued. Rescue efforts are likely to be complex as many international aid workers have fled Afghanistan following the Taliban occupation of the country last year and the chaotic withdrawal of the US military from the biggest war in its history. The epicenter was reported below the Paktika prefecture in Afghanistan, about 50 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Khost. Footage from Paktika province near the border with Pakistan showed victims being flown by helicopter to be evacuated from the area. Others cared for the ground. One resident could be seen receiving intravenous fluids while sitting in a plastic chair outside the ruins of his home, and even more were spread on heels. Other images showed residents collecting brick bricks and other rubble from damaged stone houses. Afghan emergency official Sharafuddin Muslim gave the death toll at a news conference Wednesday. Earlier, the director general of the state-run Bakhtar news agency, Abdul Wahid Rayan, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses had been destroyed in Paktika and dozens of people believed to be trapped under the rubble. In this video from the state-run Bakhtar news agency, Taliban fighters secure a government helicopter to evacuate wounded in the Gayan area of Afghanistan’s Paktika province following a strong earthquake on Wednesday. (The Bakhtar State News Agency / The Associated Press) Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, did not give a specific death toll, but wrote on Twitter that hundreds of people had been killed and injured in the quake, which shook four districts in Paktika. “We urge all relief services to send teams to the area immediately to prevent further disaster,” he wrote. In just one area of neighboring Khost province, the quake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 95 others, local officials said. In Kabul, Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Ahud convened an emergency meeting at the presidential palace to coordinate efforts to provide assistance to victims in Paktika and Khost. “The answer is on the way,” Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN Resident Coordinator in Afghanistan, wrote on Twitter.
The tremors were felt in Pakistan and India
In most parts of the world, an earthquake of this magnitude would not cause such extensive damage, said Robert Saunders, a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. But the death toll from an earthquake is more often due to the geography, the quality of the buildings and the density of the population. “Because of the mountainous area, there are landslides and landslides that we will not know about until later. Older buildings are likely to collapse and break down,” he said. “Because of how dense the area is in this part of the world, we have seen similar earthquakes in the past cause significant damage.” Deep sadness I learned about the earthquake in Afghanistan, which resulted in the loss of innocent lives. People in Pakistan share the grief & sorrow of their Afghan brothers. Authorities are working to support Afghanistan in this time of need. – @ CMShehbaz Pakistani Prime Minister Sehbaz Sharif has expressed his condolences over the quake, saying his nation will help the Afghan people. Mountainous Afghanistan and the wider region of South Asia along the Hindu Kush Mountains, where the Indian tectonic plate collides with the Eurasian plate in the north, have long been vulnerable to catastrophic earthquakes. The European Seismological Service (EMSC) said the quake was felt more than 500 kilometers away by 119 million people across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. In 2015, a major earthquake shook the northeastern part of the country and killed more than 200 people in Afghanistan and neighboring northern Pakistan. A similar earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale in 2002 killed at least 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan. And in 1998, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake and subsequent earthquakes in northeastern Afghanistan killed at least 4,500 people.
