NB BUREAU
Death toll in Afghanistan rises to 920 and over six hundreds injured when a powerful earthquake stuck the eastern part of the country early Wednesday, Taliban’s Mawlawi Sharafuddin Muslim, deputy Minister of State for Disaster Management said.
According to the reports, earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck Paktika province in the Afghanistan besides shacking the neighboring Pakistan. However their are no reports of any death or destruction from the Pakistani side.
Afghanistan’s state-run Bakhtar news agency reported the death toll and said rescuers were arriving by helicopter. The news agency’s director-general, Abdul Wahid Rayan, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses have been destroyed in Paktika and dozens of people are believed trapped under the rubble.
Footage from Paktika province near the Pakistan border showed victims being carried into helicopters to be airlifted from the area. Images widely circulating online from the province showed destroyed stone houses, with residents picking through clay bricks and other rubble.
Bakhtar posted footage of a resident receiving IV fluids from a plastic chair outside the rubble of his home and others sprawled on gurneys.
“A severe earthquake shook four districts of Paktika province, killing and injuring hundreds of our countrymen and destroying dozens of houses,” Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, separately wrote on Twitter.
“We urge all aid agencies to send teams to the area immediately to prevent further catastrophe.” he added.
In neighbouring Khost province, authorities believed there are also dozens injured and dead in the earthquake as well, Rayan said.
Neighbouring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department put the earthquake at a magnitude 6.1. Tremors were felt in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and elsewhere in the eastern Punjab province.
The European seismological agency, EMSC, said the earthquake’s tremors were felt over 500 km (310 miles) by 119 million people across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
(With Inputs from media reports)
