A strong earthquake struck a rural and mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border on Wednesday, killing at least 920 people and injuring 600 more, authorities said.
Officials warned that the death toll was likely to rise.
Information remained scarce about the magnitude 6.1 quake that damaged buildings in Khost and Paktika provinces.
Afghans look at the devastation caused by an earthquake in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan. (AP)
It comes when the international community has largely left Afghanistan after the Taliban took possession of the country last year and the chaotic withdrawal of the U.S. military from the longest war in its history.
This is likely to complicate any relief effort for this 38 million-strong country.
Pakistan’s neighboring meteorological department said the quake’s epicenter was in Paktika province, Afghanistan, near the border and about 50 kilometers southwest of Khost city. These tremors can cause severe damage, especially in an area like this where houses and other buildings are poorly constructed and landslides are common.
Images from Paktika province showed people being taken by helicopter to be transported from the area. Others were treated on the ground. A resident could be seen receiving fluids intravenously while sitting in a plastic chair outside the rubble of his house and even more scattered on stretchers. Other images showed residents picking up clay bricks and other ruins of destroyed stone houses.
Afghans look at the devastation caused by an earthquake in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan, (AP)
Bakhtar state news agency reported the death toll and its director general, Abdul Wahid Rayan, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses have been destroyed in Paktika and that dozens of people are believed to be trapped under the rubble.
Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, did not give a specific death toll, but wrote on Twitter that hundreds of people were killed and injured in the quake, which shook four districts in Paktika.
“We urge all aid agencies to send equipment to the area immediately to prevent further disasters,” he wrote.
In just one district in neighboring Khost province, the quake killed at least 25 people and injured more than 95, local authorities said.
Afghans evacuate injured after earthquake in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan. (AP)
In Kabul, Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund convened an emergency meeting at the presidential palace to coordinate the relief effort for the victims in Paktika and Khost.
The “answer is on its way,” UN Resident Coordinator in Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov wrote on Twitter.
Some remote areas of Pakistan saw reports of damage to homes near the Afghan border, but it was not immediately clear whether it was due to rain or an earthquake, said Taimoor Khan, a spokesman for disaster management. the area.
In this image taken from a video by the Bakhtar State News Agency, Taliban fighters secure a government helicopter to evacuate the wounded in Gayan District, Paktika Province, Afghanistan. (AP)
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif said in a statement that he offered his condolences to the earthquake, saying his nation would help the Afghan people.
The European Earthquake Agency (EMSC) said earthquakes were felt more than 500 kilometers away by 119 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Mountainous Afghanistan and the largest region in South Asia along the Hindu Kush mountains have long been vulnerable to devastating earthquakes.
The orange dot represents where the earthquake occurred in Afghanistan. (Geoscience)
A major earthquake in the northeast of the country in 2015 killed more than 200 people in Afghanistan and neighboring northern Pakistan.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake in 2002 killed about 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan.
And in 1998, another quake of the same magnitude and aftershocks in the far northeast of Afghanistan killed at least 4,500 people.