Iran Offers Assistance to Quake-Hit Afghanistan, Pakistan

“We received 50 injured and more are being shifted”. The quake and its aftershocks killed more than 88,000 people and injured more than 69,000 people.

Eds: updates with higher death toll.

The magnitude was centered in Hindu Kush region – a remote mountain range on the border between central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.

The US Geological Survey put the epicentre near Jarm in the country’s northeast, 250 kilometres (160 miles) from the capital Kabul and at a depth of 213.5 km.

In one of the worst incidents, at least 12 girls were killed in a stampede to get out of their school in the northeastern Afghan province of Takhar. Another 30 girls were taken to the hospital in the provincial capital of Taluqan.

At least 52 people have died in Afghanistan and 167 in Pakistan, according to officials in each country.

Six people, including children, were killed in Swat, while four people were killed in the Bajaur tribal region after the collapse of buildings in the area.

It was by far the most terrifying quake I have felt.

People stand outside their offices after a severe quake is felt in Islamabad, Pakistan, today.

Stranded drivers wait in their vehicles after an natural disaster in Srinagar on October 26, 2015. In September 2013, a magnitude-7.7 quake struck Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, killing at least 376 people.

Officials in Nangarhar said people were trapped under debris in a few districts of the volatile province, known as a hotbed for Islamic State insurgents.

Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said on Twitter the quake was “the strongest one felt in recent decades”.

In the Afghan capital of Kabul, buildings shook for up to 45 seconds, walls cracked and cars rolled in the streets as electricity went out. I pray for everyone’s safety, ” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted.

Pakistan army chief General Raheel Sharif left for Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to supervise rescue operations in earthquake-hit areas, military’s media wing ISPR says in a statement. It gave no further details.

Local reports said people in New Delhi were seen evacuating office buildings while the Times of India reported that the Delhi metro has also halted services.