The tremors were felt as far away as the capital Kabul, hundreds of kilometers away from the epicenter in Kholm, in Samangan province.
More than 20 people died this Monday following a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in northern Afghanistan, according to a new report from authorities.
“Around 320 compatriots were injured and more than 20 died” in the provinces of Samangan and Balkh, declared Sharafat Zaman, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, stressing that this is a provisional balance.
A previous report from the Afghan disaster management authority, ANDMA, reported nine deaths.
The earthquake, which occurred shortly before 01:00 local time (20:30 on Sunday in Lisbon) in Kholm, in the province of Samangan, near the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, had a depth of 28 kilometers, according to the United States Institute of Geological Studies (USGS).
Previously, ANDMA indicated that most of the injured in Samangan returned home after receiving medical care.
In Mazar-e-Sharif, a large city in the north of the country, in the province of Balkh, the blue mosque, a 15th century monument, was damaged: stones came loose from the imposing building, especially the minaret, and covered the floor of the place, one of the only tourist attractions in the country, according to a journalist from the France-Presse agency (AFP).
Journalists were not allowed to photograph the mosque.
The Ministry of Defense said it had cleared and reopened a road that was cut off by landslides, and rescued people who were trapped there overnight.
The tremors were felt even in the capital Kabulhundreds of kilometers away, reported AFP journalists at the scene.
Earthquake in August killed more than two thousand people
This earthquake comes after a another of magnitude 6 hit, at the end of August, the eastern provinces of Kounar, Laghman and Nangarhar. The earthquake, the deadliest in Afghanistan’s recent history, killed 2,205 people, injured 3,640 others and destroyed almost 7,000 homesaccording to Taliban authorities.
This tremor was followed by numerous aftershocks and support work ended up being hampered due to complicated access to the affected areas, as the earthquake hit agricultural and remote areas, on the border with Pakistan.
According to the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 111.5 million dollars (96.6 million euros) are needed just for the post-earthquake response in the east of the country, which placed 221,000 people in “urgent need” of humanitarian aid.
Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
Since 1900, the northeast of the country has suffered 12 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 7 on the Richter scale, according to Brian Baptie, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey.
The Taliban, back in power in Afghanistan since 2021, have already faced several earthquakes, including the one in the Herat region, on the border with Iran, in 2023, in which more than 1,500 people died and more than 63,000 homes were destroyed.
