A strong earthquake in Afghanistan shook the border area near Iran

NAt least 320 people have died after several strong earthquakes rocked Afghanistan, the United Nations said Saturday evening. Chindajan district was particularly affected. Houses were also damaged. Officials fear that the death toll will rise later in the day.

Afghanistan’s civil defense agency fears hundreds of deaths after strong earthquakes. Seven villages in the hard-hit border province of Herat were completely destroyed, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority told a German press agency on Saturday.

“Some villages were home to 1,000 or more people. There were 300 houses. Only 100 people survived,” said the spokesperson. Initially 15 deaths were confirmed. Many residents are believed to be still inside the rubble.

At least eight earthquakes cause destruction and suffering

On Saturday morning, at least eight earthquakes struck the border region near Iran in a short period of time. The United States Earthquake Observatory USGS places the Richter scale between 4.6 and 6.3. The earthquake struck northwest of the Afghan border city of Herat, at a depth of about ten kilometers.

According to Sabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, military and rescue agencies have been ordered to rush to help the quake-hit areas. Due to this, hospitals are preparing for many injured people.

The earthquake was also felt in neighboring Iran. Residents said walls of houses in the Iranian city of Mashhad, about 300 kilometers from the epicenter, shook. According to Iran’s state media, teams were sent to border areas to survey possible damage. There were dozens of aftershocks.

“We left the buildings”

A resident of Afghanistan’s Herat province reported strong tremors: “We ran out of buildings,” the man said. “Everyone is out in the open and no one knows what happened to their homes.” More than two million people call the Afghan border province home.

The head of the state news agency in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan wrote to a group of journalists: “Unfortunately, the earthquake caused a lot of damage to the residents of Herat. Exact details will be announced later,” he said.

The region where the Arabian, Indian, and Eurasian plates meet frequently experiences severe earthquakes. A devastating earthquake in Afghanistan in 2022 killed more than 1,000 people.