More the 800 people have been reported to be dead with 2500 injured after the deadly quakes in the Kunar Province and Jalalabad city in Afghanistan.
An Afghan government spokesperson, Mawlawi Zabihullah Mujahid, said that the death toll could rise as the rescue efforts continued.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has offered humanitarian aid, including medical supplies, to the country.
“In these difficult moments and great tragedy, while expressing sincere condolences and solidarity with the great people of Afghanistan and the bereaved families, the Islamic Republic of Iran announces its full readiness to send relief, medical and humanitarian aid,” Araghchi said in comments carried by Iran’s Tasnim news agency.
An entire village in the Nurgal district of Kunar province was flattened, according to one resident. “Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble,” the villager said.
In the Darai Nur district in the Nangarhar province, nine people, including children, were killed, according to reports from Afghan RTA broadcasters. In Laghman province majority of the 58 injured were women and children.
The 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the eastern part of the country close to the Pakistan border.
According to Thamindri de Silva, national director of World Vision Afghanistan, who spoke to Al Jazeera, The epicentre of the Mazar valley was” one of the remotest and also one of the poorest parts” of the country. The remoteness of the area and the inaccessibility make it difficult to gauge the exact scale of destruction. The houses in the area were built with mud and little reinforcement, according to de Silva.
The earthquake struck about 27 kilometres east of Jalalabad, a crowded trade city with a population of 300,000. The first quake struck only at a depth of around 8 km, making it a very shallow quake, which can be extremely destructive, especially to cities. Shallow quakes are said to occur at depths less than 70 km.
After a while, another quake, recorded at a magnitude 4.5 struck at a depth of 140 km near Basawal not far from the first one.
Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes as its Hindu Kush mountains sit at the meeting of the Indian and Eaurasian tectonic plates. The area is home to many tectonic locked faults, which accumulate pressure over time. When the pressure is released, it results in powerful earthquakes.