By John Ikani
A 6.1 magnitude earthquake has struck south-east Afghanistan killing at least 255 people, according to the country’s official news agency.
Neighboring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department said the quake’s epicenter was in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, just near the border and some 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the city of Khost.
Pictures show landslides and ruined mud-built homes in eastern Paktika province, where rescuers are scrambling to treat the injured.
In remote areas, helicopters have been ferrying victims to hospitals.
Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, gave no specific death toll but wrote on Twitter that hundreds of people were killed and injured in the earthquake, which shook four districts in Paktika.
“We urge all aid agencies to send teams to the area immediately to prevent further catastrophe,” he wrote.
The local Bakhtar News Agency said the death toll was likely to rise, adding more than 600 people were injured.
Bakhtar said local officials feared the death toll could rise if the central government did not provide emergency help.
Taliban officials have called for aid agencies to rush to the affected areas in the nation’s east.
It is worthwhile to note that earthquakes tend to cause significant damage in Afghanistan, where there are many rural areas where dwellings are unstable or poorly built.
Mountainous Afghanistan and the larger region of South Asia along the Hindu Kush mountains has long been vulnerable to devastating earthquakes.
In 2015, a major earthquake that struck the country’s northeast killed over 200 people in Afghanistan and neighboring northern Pakistan.
A 6.1-magnitude earthquake in 2002 killed about 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan. And in 1998, another earthquake of the same strength and subsequent tremors in Afghanistan’s remote northeast killed at least 4,500 people.
