Afghanistan hit by third earthquake in a week
ALLAH AND THE SOPHIA HAVE ABANDONED THEM
EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKA new earthquake has hit western Afghanistan - several days after two large tremors in the region killed more than 1,000 people.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) says the magnitude 6.3 quake struck near the city of Herat. It was at a depth of 6.3km (four miles).
At least one person has died, according to local health authorities.
Another 100 are being treated for injuries in the regional hospital, the World Health Organisation said.
More than 90% of those who died in the earlier quakes were women and children, the UN's children agency Unicef said.
In its report, the USGS said the epicentre of the latest tremor was 30km north-west of Herat, Afghanistan's third-largest city close to the Iranian border.
Last Saturday's earthquake hit Zindajan, a rural district some 40km from Herat.
The tremor saw entire houses, which were too fragile to withstand the quake, reduced to rubble.
Villagers used shovels and bare hands to search for missing people.
Medicines Sans Frontiers Afghanistan Programme head, Yahya Kalilah told the AFP news agency the casualties would likely be low because people were already sleeping outside in tents.
"In terms of psychology, people are panicked and traumatised," he said.
"People are not feeling safe. I will assure you 100%, no one will sleep in their house."
The Taliban, who has been ruling Afghanistan since 2021, also as the cold sets in, will likely not be able to manage in tents for more than a month.
Afghanistan has been reeling from an economic crisis since the Taliban came to power, when aid given directly to the government was stopped.
The country is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, as it lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
In June last year, the province of Paktika was hit by a 5.9 magnitude quake which killed more than 1,000 people and left tens of thousands homeless.
Powerful Earthquake Shakes West Afghanistan a Week after Devastating Quakes Hit Same Region
A man affected by earthquake waits for relief in the earthquake-hit Zenda Jan district of Herat, Afghanistan, 13 October 2023. (EPA)
10:46-15 October 2023 AD ـ
A powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck western Afghanistan on Sunday, just over a week after strong quakes and aftershocks killed thousands of people and flattened entire villages in the same region.
The US Geological Survey said the latest quake’s epicenter was about 34 kilometers (21 miles) outside Herat, the provincial capital, and eight kilometers (five miles) below the surface.
Aid group Doctors Without Borders said two people were reported dead while Herat Regional Hospital received over 100 people injured in Sunday’s temblor.
Mohammad Zahir Noorzai, head of the emergency relief team in Herat province said one person died and nearly 150 others were injured. He added that casualty numbers might rise, as they are yet to reach all affected areas.
Sayed Kazim Rafiqi, 42, a Herta city resident, said he had never seen such devastation before with the majority of houses damaged and "people terrified." Rafiqi and others headed to the hospital to donate much-needed blood.
"We have to help in any way possible," he said.
The earthquakes on Oct. 7 flattened whole villages in Herat, in one of the most destructive quakes in the country’s recent history.
More than 90% of the people killed a week ago were women and children, UN officials reported Thursday.
Taliban officials said the earlier quakes killed more than 2,000 people across the province. The epicenter was in Zenda Jan district, where 1,294 people died, 1,688 were injured and every home was destroyed, according to UN figures.
The initial quake, numerous aftershocks and a second 6.3-magnitude quake on Wednesday flattened villages, destroying hundreds of mud-brick homes that could not withstand such force. Schools, health clinics and other village facilities also collapsed.
Besides rubble and funerals after that devastation, there was little left of the villages in the region’s dusty hills.
Survivors are struggling to come to terms with the loss of multiple family members and in many places, living residents are outnumbered by volunteers who came to search the debris and dig mass graves.
AFP Published October 15, 2023
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake shook western Afghanistan on Sunday, the US Geological Survey said, wracking the same region where more than 1,000 people were killed in tremors last week.
The quake hit just after 8am with an epicentre 33 kilometres northwest of Herat city, the capital of the same-named western province, the USGS said.
A magnitude 5.5 aftershock followed 20 minutes later.
Abdul Qadeem Mohammadi, head doctor at Herat Regional Hospital, told AFP that “so far 93 injured and one dead have been registered”.
National disaster management officials said they were still investigating the scale of destruction.
An AFP reporter in Herat city said most residents were still sleeping outside a week after the start of a series of quakes in the region, fearful of aftershocks pulling down their homes in the night.
But some had begun sleeping inside again.
“Herat’s people are panicked and scared,” said 27-year-old shopkeeper Hamid Nizami.
“It’s Allah’s blessing that it happened during the day, people were awake,” he said.
Another magnitude 6.3 quake and eight powerful aftershocks jolted the same part of Herat on October 7, toppling swathes of rural homes.
The Taliban government said more than 1,000 people were killed in last week’s tremors, while the World Health Organization (WHO) put the figure at nearly 1,400 late Saturday.
Another tremor of the same intensity killed one person and injured 130 others days after the initial quakes, as thousands of terrified residents were left without shelter and volunteers dug for survivors.
The quakes were followed by dust storms which damaged the tents survivors were living in.
“Many of our countrymen don’t have any place to live and nights are getting colder,” said shopkeeper Nizami.
‘Can’t live here’
The WHO says nearly 20,000 people have been affected by the string of disasters, with women and children making up most of the fatalities.
Thousands of residents are now living around the ruins of homes where entire families were wiped out in an instant.
Forty-year-old Mohammad Naeem told AFP he lost 12 relatives, including his mother, after last week’s quakes.
“We can’t live here anymore. You can see, our family got martyred here. How could we live here?” he said.
Earthquakes are frequent in western and central Afghanistan and are mostly caused by the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates jutting against each other.
Providing shelter on a large scale will be a challenge for Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities, who seized power in August 2021 and have fractious relations with international aid organisations.
“We know they could live there in tents for one month, but more than that would probably be very difficult,” said public health minister Qalandar Ebad.
Most homes in rural Afghanistan are made of mud and built around wooden support poles, with little in the way of steel or concrete reinforcement.
Multi-generational extended families generally live under the same roof, meaning serious earthquakes can devastate communities.
Afghanistan is already suffering a dire humanitarian crisis, with the widespread withdrawal of foreign aid following the Taliban government’s return to power.
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