Afghanistan's worst earthquake in years

Tragedy has struck Afghanistan last week as the nation experienced its worst earthquake in years that has killed over 1,100, leaving thousands more injured. At least 1,124 people have died, 3,251 have been injured and over 8,000 houses have been destroyed, said the Afghan Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian group working in the region, adding that more people are feared trapped under rubble. The U.N. coordinator in Afghanistan said the toll was likely to rise. The earthquake in Afghanistan, with a magnitude of 6, struck around midnight local time last Monday, at a shallow depth of 10 km (6 miles), with the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar worst hit. Three villages in Kunar were completely flattened, which alone recorded more than 600 deaths. Rescue operations were carried out in four badly hit villages in Kunar on Monday and efforts will be focused on reaching more remote mountain areas, said Ehsanullah Ehsan, the provincial head of disaster management. The country is prone to devastating earthquakes and it experienced tremors with a magnitude of more than 5.0 on at least four occasions between April and August alone. Afghanistan is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because of its location at the intersection of two major tectonic plates – the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate. Monday's earthquake, however, is the country’s worst since June 2022, when a 6.0 magnitude quake killed more than 1,000 people. The rescue and relief work has struggled in the face of tight resources in the nation of 42 million people and limited global help in the aftermath of the tragedy.