A powerful magnitude-6.3 earthquake followed by strong aftershocks has killed about hundreds of people in the western Afghanistan, the country's national disaster authority said as reported by Associated Press. More than 2,000 people have been killed while more than 9,000 have been injured, the Taliban administration said on Sunday, in the deadliest tremors to rock the quake-prone mountainous country in years.The United States Geological Survey said the epicentre of the magnitude 6.3 quake was 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of the region's largest city Herat. It was later followed by three very strong aftershocks, measuring magnitude 6.3, 5.9 and 5.5 magnitude, as well as lesser shocks. Earlier, the Geological Survey had also said that the eight aftershocks with magnitudes between 4.3 and 6.3 followed.
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1. More than 2,000 people were killed in earthquakes in Afghanistan and more than 9,000 injured, the Taliban administration said on Sunday, in the deadliest tremors to rock the quake-prone mountainous country in years
2. The earthquake were among the world's deadliest quakes in a year when tremors in Turkey and Syria killed an estimated 50,000 in February. Janan Sayeeq, spokesman for the Ministry of Disasters, said 2,053 people were killed, 9,240 injured and 1,320 houses damaged or destroyed.
3. Disaster authority spokesperson Mohammad Abdullah Jan said four villages in the Zenda Jan district in Herat province bore the brunt of the quake and aftershocks. Death tolls often rise when information comes in from more remote parts of a country where decades of war have left infrastructure in a shambles, and relief and rescue operations difficult to organise.
4. More than 200 dead had been brought to various hospitals, said a Herat health department official who identified himself as Dr Danish, adding most of them were women and children, as reported by Reuters.
5. Afghanistan's healthcare system, reliant almost entirely on foreign aid, has faced crippling cuts in the two years since the Taliban took over and much international assistance, which had formed the backbone of the economy, was halted.
6. The World Health Organization in Afghanistan said it dispatched 12 ambulance cars to Zenda Jan to evacuate casualties to hospitals. “As deaths & casualties from the earthquake continue to be reported, teams are in hospitals assisting treatment of wounded & assessing additional needs," the UN agency said on X.
7. As per United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Afghanistan, in total, 4,200 people (600 families) are assessed to have been affected to date, including 1,400 IDPs (300 families). Mahal Wadakah is understood to be the worst affected village. Additionally, an estimated 300 families (2,100 people) are reported to have been displaced to Herat City where they are living in abandoned buildings.
8. Telephone connections went down in Herat, making it hard to get details from affected areas. Videos on social media showed hundreds of people in the streets outside their homes and offices in Herat city. Herat province borders Iran. The quake also was felt in the nearby Afghan provinces of Farah and Badghis, according to local media reports. Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban-appointed deputy prime minister for economic affairs, expressed his condolences to the dead and injured in Herat and Badghis.
Meanwhile, earlier in June 2022, a powerful earthquake had struck a rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, flattening stone and mud-brick homes. The quake considered as Afghanistan's deadliest in two decades, killed at least 1,000 people while injured about 1,500 people.
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