Powerful quake near Afghanistan’s Mazar-e-Sharif kills 20

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A powerful 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck near Mazar-e-Sharif early Monday, killing at least 20 people and injuring 320, prompting immediate rescue efforts in the affected areas.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at a depth of 28 kilometers (17.4 mi) near Mazar-e-Sharif, which has a population of about 52,523,000.

“As of this morning, a total of 150 people have been reported injured and seven martyred and shifted to health centers,” said Samim Jund, spokesman for the health department in Samangan, a mountainous northern province near Mazar-i-Sharif.

The tool was based on reports from hospitals collected on Monday morning, he said.

The USGS issued an orange alert in its pager system, an automated system that generates information about the effects of the earthquake, indicating that “significant casualties are likely and destruction is potentially widespread”.

The system alert further states that past events with this alert level required a regional or national level response.

Balkh province spokesman Haji Zaid said, referring to the Blue Mosque, that the earthquake destroyed part of the holy shrine of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The country’s National Disaster Management Agency said information on casualties and damage would be shared later. Reuters could not immediately confirm the extent of damage caused by the earthquake.

Videos of rescue efforts to rescue people trapped under the rubble of buildings were shared on social media platform X. A video showed rescuers pulling bodies from the wreckage.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the footage and photos.

earthquake in August, one of the deadliest on record

According to the USGS, a powerful earthquake struck northeast Afghanistan on August 31. Dozens of aftershocks followed.

In September, the Taliban administration said that thousands of people were killed and thousands were injured.

The quakes were centered near the eastern city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan’s five largest cities and the capital of Nangarhar province.

The first earthquake on August 31 was Afghanistan’s worst in years, flattening homes in remote villages.

Fragile buildings in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is particularly prone to earthquakes because the country is located on two major active faults that have the potential to rupture and cause widespread damage.

According to a 2021 paper published in the Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, most homes in Afghanistan lack a solid foundation and are often poorly constructed.

The structures are either made of burnt brick with cement mortar or sun-dried brick masonry buildings with load-bearing walls. The thickness of the walls ranges from 20 to 30 cm for burnt brick and about 40 cm to 80 cm for sun-dried brick structures.

According to the report, these houses can be covered by large and often heavy roofs that can collapse into the structure, making them extremely vulnerable to seismic activity.

According to residents, some houses partially damaged by the first earthquake were destroyed by the second one. More than 5,400 houses have been destroyed, according to Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban administration.

In 2015, a massive earthquake struck northeastern Afghanistan, killing several hundred people in Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan. Another one in 2023 killed at least 1,000 people.

The recent earthquake was less intense than those two earthquakes, but still caused widespread destruction.

Magnitude measures the size of the seismic waves produced by an earthquake, not its strength. The scale is logarithmic, meaning that a whole number increase in magnitude represents a 10-fold jump in earthquake size.

For example, a magnitude 7 earthquake is ten times larger than a magnitude 6 earthquake. The actual energy released increases even more rapidly with intensity. 7 Earthquake A 7 earthquake is about 32 times stronger than a 6 earthquake in terms of energy released.

Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. The eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar were the worst hit in the recent earthquake.