A 6.5-magnitude earthquake strikes northeast Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border

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Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
21 March 2023 Tuesday 11:27
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A 6.5-magnitude earthquake strikes northeast Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border

A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck northeastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, near the borders with Pakistan, Tajikistan and China, with no damage or casualties reported so far.

The earthquake occurred at 10:17 p.m. local time (1647 GMT), with its epicenter some 40 kilometers from the town of Jurm, in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, and close to the huge Hindu Kush mountain range, according to the Service. United States Geological Survey (USGS).

However, the tremor was also strongly felt in Kabul, located about 300 kilometers away from the epicenter, as well as in Pakistan and northern India.

The Afghan Hindu Kush area is a point of great seismic activity and a common point of origin of telluric movements in the region.

At the end of last June, a similar earthquake of magnitude 5.9 in the eastern provinces of Paktika and Khost, bordering Pakistan, caused the death of more than a thousand people and injured some 1,500, in addition to the destruction of hundreds of homes.

The country also suffered one of the largest earthquake disasters in 1998 in the north of the country, when in February two earthquakes of magnitude 5.9 and 6 caused the death of some 4,000 people. A few months later, at the end of May, another earthquake of magnitude 7 shook the area again, causing some 5,000 deaths.