Earthquake kills over 800 in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan —  A 6.0-magnitude earthquake that hit eastern Afghanistan killed 800 people, with more than 2,500 injured, the interior ministry spokesman told AFP on Monday.
In the earthquake that struck just before midnight on Sunday, '610 people were killed and 1,300 were injured in Kunar province, with numerous houses destroyed', spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said, adding that in Nangarhar province, 12 people were killed and another 255 were injured.

The earthquake struck about 17 miles from Jalalabad, a city of about 200,000 people in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. Jalalabad is less than 100 miles by road from Kabul, the capital, and the aftershocks could be felt across the city throughout the night.

Sediqullah Quraishi Badloon, a communications official for Nangarhar province, which includes Jalalabad, said that most of the 250 deaths had occurred in neighboring Kunar province. Nine deaths have been confirmed in Nangarhar, he said.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a government spokesperson, said on social media early Monday that the earthquake had “caused loss of life and property damage in some of our eastern provinces.” He gave no other details.

The USGS said its models predicted “significant casualties” and potential widespread damage from the earthquake. People in the affected area typically live in structures that are extremely vulnerable to earthquakes, the agency said.

Earthquakes are a prevalent danger in Afghanistan and other countries in the region, including Iran, where many people live on or near geological faults.
For Afghanistan, any destructive quake is another roadblock to rebuilding a country devastated by decades of war. Many of its densely populated towns and cities sit on or near geological faults.

In 2022, a 5.9-magnitude quake struck in a remote area of Afghanistan’s southeast, killing at least 1,000 people.

The country has been in the grip of a severe economic crisis compounded by the suspension of U.S. foreign aid earlier this year, as well as the expulsions and forced returns of more than 2 million Afghan nationals from neighboring Iran and Pakistan.

More than half of Afghanistan’s 42 million people were already in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.