Afghanistan Earthquake Shakes India and Pakistan

A 6.6-earthquake has struck Afghanistan shaking a number of major cities across south-west Asia.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake struck close to Afghanistan’s border with Tajikistan at 10:28 GMT.

The tremor was felt in Kabul, Islamabad, Lahore and Delhi, forcing residents to leave their homes.

In October 2015, a magnitude-7.5 quake in the same border area killed close to 300 people.

The latest quake, in the sparsely-populated Hindu Kush mountains, struck at a depth of 210km, the USGS reported. It was the same depth as the 2015 quake.

At least one person died in Pakistan’s Swat region, with another 30 injured, emergency officials said.

There were no reports of significant damage, but a spokesman for Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority said there was a high risk of landslides.

The USGS says the earthquake took place in “one of the most seismically hazardous regions on earth”.

The Hindu Kush mountains sit on the corner of the Indian plate, rather than being at the front line of the continental collision, where the Himalayas are thrust upwards as India disappears beneath Eurasia at a rate of 2ins per year.

It is in this rugged region that the sideways slip between India and Afghanistan meets the head-on impact of the Himalayan fault line. There are many small, interacting faults and forces pushing in different directions.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported on April 9 that the region had been shaken by a series of strong quakes centered on Hindu Kush in recent days.