Toll expected to rise after powerful quake strikes during night near Khost, 95 miles south of Kabul
A powerful earthquake in a remote area of Afghanistan’s Paktika province has killed at least 920 people with the death toll expected rise in the impoverished country.
In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesperson for the Taliban government called for aid agencies to assist with the emergency efforts. “We urge all aid agencies to send teams to the area immediately to prevent further catastrophe,” he said.“Inter-agency assessment teams have already been deployed to a number of affected areas,” tweeted the UN office for humanitarian affairs in Afghanistan.
The local markets are closed and all the people have rushed to the affected areas,” Manzor told the AFP news agency by telephone. But he added: “Afghanistan has a shortage of helicopters and these areas being hard to access is making relief work difficult.”The centre of the earthquake – estimated to have had a magnitude of 6.1 by Pakistan and 5.9 by the US Geological Survey – occurred 30 miles south-west of the city of Khost. It occurred at the relatively shallow depth of six miles, worsening its impact.
The death toll, given by Afghan emergency official Mawlawi Sharafuddin Muslim, made it the deadliest quake since 2002, when a 6.1-magnitude tremor killed about 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan, immediately after the US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban government after the 9/11 attacks.
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