Afghanistan earthquake claims hundreds of lives

The death toll is expected to rise significantly.

“The devastation is going to be huge”.

In one province, nearly 1,500 houses were destroyed.

Kabul-A 7.5-magnitude natural disaster struck a remote area of northeastern Afghanistan on Monday, shaking the capital Kabul killed 65 and injuring dozens others, officials said.

In Afghanistan, at least 52 people were reported dead in several provinces. “The students rushed to escape the school building [when the quake occurred], triggering a stampede”, Takhar education department chief Enayat Naweed told the AFP news agency.

Shockwaves were felt in northern India and in Pakistan, where hundreds of people ran out of buildings as the ground rolled beneath them. Deadly tremors were also felt in neighboring Pakistan where children were among the wounded.

Pakistani authorities reported that 209 people had been killed and at least 956 others had been injured. At least three aftershocks of 4.4, 4.7 and 4.8 magnitude were reported from the region soon afterwards.

“Earthquake such as this (Monday’s) event, with focal depths between 70 km and 300 km, are commonly termed as “intermediate depth” earthquakes… which may be felt at a great distance from their epicentres”, the USGS said. Infrastructure in the region hit by the epicentre were made of mud brick, which is prone to collapse. “A lot of the phone lines are still down”, said Scott Anderson, deputy head of office for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Kabul.

Buildings in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, were also damaged by the quake.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif directed the concerned officials to provide relief to the affected people.

“Northward underthrusting of India beneath Eurasia generates numerous earthquakes and consequently makes this area one of the most seismically hazardous regions on Earth”, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Rare images of a few collapsed structures and buildings have been broadcasted by Afghan broadcaster Tolo TV.

The Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah in Afghanistan tweeted the government had requested aid agencies to work to help those in demand. “Many are still under rubble”, Sadiq told AFP. Sixty-five year old Zoona Begum of Mohalla Mir Sahab in old town Baramulla suffered a massive heart attack as she was rushing towards a safer place when the natural disaster hit around 2:40 pm, police said. Hundreds in north India poured onto the streets from office blocks, hospitals and homes. Trains across the Delhi Metro corridor came to a screeching halt as soon as quake struck the national capital, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.