A powerful magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck northern Afghanistan early on Monday near the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province.
Four people were killed in Balkh province according to a provincial health department spokesperson. He said the provincial hospital was also treating 120 people for injuries.
Afghanistan’s national disaster management agency said on X that five people had died and 143 were injured in neighboring Samangan province.
A health department spokesman from Samangan had earlier told Reuters news agency that seven people had died and 150 were injured in the earthquake.
Casualty figures are expected to climb on Monday as rescue efforts continue.
The Afghan Red Crescent said that rescue and medical teams had arrived in the affected areas.
What else do we know about the earthquake?
The earthquake struck at just before 1 a.m. local time Monday (8:30 p.m. GMT) at a depth of 28 kilometers (17 miles) some 22 kilometers from Kholm, near Mazar-i-Sharif, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
Kholm is home to around 65,000 people, while about 523,000 live in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan’s fifth-largest city.
In Mazar-i-Sharif, many people ran into the street in the middle of the night, fearing their homes might collapse, a correspondent for French news agency AFP reported.
USGS issued an orange alert on its automated PAGER system, which means “significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread.”
Monday’s earthquake comes just two months after a magnitude-6.0 quake struck in Afghanistan’s east, killing more than 2,200 people.
Why is Afghanistan so prone to earthquakes?
Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, particularly along the Hindu Kush mountain range, near where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet.
They kill about 560 people in Afghanistan on average each year, according to Reuters news agency, and cause annual damages estimated at $80 million (€69 million).
Studies indicate at least 355 earthquakes with a magnitude higher than 5.0 have hit Afghanistan since 1990.
In addition, many modest Afghan homes are built of mud bricks. This makes them susceptible to earthquake damage.
Poor infrastructure connecting remote regions also hampers rescue efforts after natural disasters like earthquakes.
Afghanistan is already facing multiple crises including a severe drought and the return of millions of Afghans from neighbouring countries, the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said in an September report.
Edited by: Karl Sexton
