An earthquake in Afghanistan\u2019s east has killed at least 800 people, injured 2,800 and destroyed numerous villages, a spokesman for the Taliban government said on Monday.<\/p>\n
The 6.0 magnitude quake late on Sunday hit a series of towns in the province of Kunar, near the city of Jalalabad in neighbouring Nangahar province, causing extensive damage.<\/p>\n
The quake at 11.47pm local time was centred 25km east-northeast of the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, the US Geological Survey said. It was just 8km deep. Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage.<\/p>\n
Interior ministry spokesman Abdul Matin Qani confirmed the casualty figures, saying the late-night quake killed 610 people and injured 1,300 in Kunar. Many houses were destroyed.<\/p>\n
The health ministry said that accurate casualty figures had yet to be gathered in an area of scattered hamlets with a long history of earthquakes and flooding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number of casualties and injuries is high, but since the area is difficult to access, our teams are still on site,\u201d health ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of injured were taken to hospital, said Najibullah Hanif, the provincial information head, with figures likely to rise as reports arrived from remote areas with few roads.<\/p>\n
Rescuers were working in several districts of the mountainous province where the quake hit, destroying homes of mud and stone on the border with Pakistan\u2019s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, officials said.<\/p>\n
Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.<\/p>\n
Jalalabad is a bustling trade city due to its proximity with neighbouring Pakistan and a key border crossing between the countries.<\/p>\n
Although it has a population of about 300,000 according to the municipality, its metropolitan area is thought to be far larger.<\/p>\n
Most of its buildings are low-rise constructions, mostly of concrete and brick, and its outlying areas include homes built of mud bricks and wood. Many are of poor construction.<\/p>\n
Jalalabad also has considerable agriculture and farming, including citrus fruit and rice, with the Kabul river flowing through the city.<\/p>\n
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Afghanistan on October 7th, 2023, followed by strong aftershocks. The Taliban government estimated at least 4,000 people perished in that quake.<\/p>\n
The UN gave a lower death toll of about 1,500. It was the deadliest natural disaster to strike Afghanistan in recent memory. – Reuters\/AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An earthquake in Afghanistan\u2019s east has killed at least 800 people, injured 2,800 and destroyed numerous villages, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[18928,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-36154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}