Topline
At least 280 people were killed and hundreds were injured after an earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan early on Wednesday, a natural disaster that will likely worsen the humanitarian crisis in the South Asian country that has been reeling from food shortages and economic turmoil since the hasty exit of U.S. forces last year.
In this image taken from video from Bakhtar State News Agency, Taliban fighters secure a government … [+]
Key Facts
According to the state-run Bakhtar News Agency, at least 280 people have been confirmed dead and more than 600 others have been injured as of 11 a.m. local time.
Local officials expect the death toll to rise further if the government is “unable to provide emergency help,” the agency’s director-general tweeted.
The earthquake was measured at magnitude 6.1 by Pakistan’s Meteorological Department and magnitude 5.9 by the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC).
The epicenter of the quake was somewhere in Afghanistan’s Paktika province—bordering northwest Pakistan—but the tremors were felt by nearly 120 million people across Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India.
Afghan officials have launched rescue operations in the affected areas using helicopters to provide medical aid, according to the Associated Press.
Bilal Karimi, a Taliban spokesperson, tweeted the earthquake had killed hundreds of people as he urged “all aid agencies to send teams to the area immediately to prevent further catastrophe.”
Tangent
The natural disaster comes at a difficult time for Afghanistan as the country was already teetering on the brink of a humanitarian disaster amid crippling food shortages and sanctions against the country’s Taliban rulers. Afghanistan fell into chaos last year as the Biden administration moved to swiftly remove all U.S. military presence in the country, bringing a hasty end to America’s longest war. The country’s civilian leadership collapsed in August as U.S. forces exited the country, resulting in the Taliban taking power in Kabul. Since then, the Taliban government has been hit with numerous international sanctions, including the Biden administration’s controversial decision to freeze $7 billion of the Afghan Central Bank’s funds—a part of which will be used to make legal payouts to the victims of the September 11 attacks.
Key Background
Areas around the Pakistan-Afghanistan border have witnessed several major earthquakes in the past two decades. In 2015, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake along the border region killed more than 250 people in Pakistan and more than 100 in Afghanistan. In March 2002, two earthquakes occurred just three weeks apart resulting in the deaths of nearly 1,200 people in Afghanistan.
Further Reading
Eastern Afghanistan earthquake kills at least 255 people (Associated Press)
Strong earthquake kills at least 280 in Afghanistan (Reuters)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/06/22/at-least-280-people-dead-after-61-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-afghanistan/