KABUL (SW) – A devastating earthquake claimed at least 280 lives in Paktika and Khost province on Wednesday.
The Bakhtar state news agency quoted local Paktika officials as saying that 255 people were killed and more than 500 were injured in a strong earthquake this morning in Bermal, Ziruk, Neka and Gyan districts of the province.
Bakhtar said that 25 people were killed and more than 95 others were injured in the earthquake in the “Afghan Dubai” area of the Spiri district of Khost province. According to local officials in these provinces, these are preliminary figures and there is a possibility of an increase in casualties from this natural phenomenon.
Most of the confirmed deaths were in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika, where 255 people had been killed and more than 200 injured, said interior ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi.
In Khost province, 25 people had been killed and 90 taken to hospital, he said. “The death toll is likely to rise as some of the villages are in remote areas in the mountains and it will take some time to collect details.”
Authorities had launched a rescue operation and helicopters were being used to reach the injured and take in medical supplies and food, Ayubi added.
According to US Geological Survey, the earthquake occurred at 1:54am (PST), about 44 km (27 miles) from the city of Khost, near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, at a depth of 51 km. The shaking was felt over some 500km by about 119 million people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
The disaster comes as Afghanistan has been enduring a severe economic crisis since the Taliban took over August, as US-led international forces were withdrawing after two decades of war, reported Reuters.
In response to the Taliban takeover, many governments have imposed sanctions on Afghanistan’s banking sector and cut billions of dollars worth of development aid.
Humanitarian aid has continued and international agencies such as the United Nations operate in the country.
An Afghan foreign ministry spokesman said they would welcome help from any international organisation.
Large parts of south Asia are seismically active because a tectonic plate known as the Indian plate is pushing north into the Eurasian plate.
In 2015, an earthquake struck the remote Afghan northeast, killing several hundred people in Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan.
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