At least a hundred people have been killed in Afghanistan by earthquakes in the west of the country, according to United Nations estimates. About five hundred people are also said to have been injured.
Many more deaths are feared. Unconfirmed reports put the number of deaths at 320. 456 homes are believed to have been destroyed and another 135 damaged, the UN Humanitarian Agency OCHA estimates. About 4,200 people are said to have been affected by the quakes.
On Saturday morning, at least eight earthquakes shook the border area near Iran in a short period of time. The American earthquake measuring station USGS estimated the strength of the quakes between 4.6 and 6.3. The quakes occurred in the morning, northwest of the Afghan city of Herat, at a depth of 10 kilometers.
Iran
The UN and aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and the Red Crescent are active in the region to provide aid.
The earthquakes were also felt in neighboring Iran. Residents of Iran’s Mashhad metropolis, some 300 kilometers from the quake zone, said the walls of their homes were shaking. According to Iranian state media, teams were sent to border areas to inspect possible damage. Dozens of aftershocks were felt.
Major earthquakes are more common in the region where different tectonic plates meet. In 2022, more than a thousand people were killed in Afghanistan as a result of a devastating earthquake. Many houses in the country are poorly built and earthquakes cause major damage.