- According to government estimates, around 2,000 people died in the devastating earthquakes in Afghanistan.
- Aid organizations such as the Red Crescent speak of more than 500 deaths that have been counted so far.
- The border province of Herat near Iran was shaken by several strong earthquakes on Saturday.
- The US Earthquake Monitoring Service (USGS) estimated the magnitude of at least eight quakes to be between 4.6 and 6.3.
A Taliban spokesman confirmed the death toll to the German Press Agency. According to the Ministry of Civil Protection, over 9,000 people were injured and more than 1,000 houses were destroyed.
Meanwhile, the desperate search for survivors continued. The UN emergency relief office OCHA initially assumed on Saturday that more than 100 people had died and that the number of victims would rise as many people were trapped under collapsed buildings.
Several villages completely destroyed
According to authorities, several villages in the severely affected border province of Herat have been completely destroyed. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a total of around 4,200 people were affected by the earthquake disaster and at least 600 houses were destroyed. Medical circles said that a good 200 dead and around 700 injured were brought to the largest hospital in the provincial capital Herat alone.
On Saturday morning, at least eight earthquakes shook the border region near Iran within a short period of time. The US Earthquake Observatory USGS put the magnitude at values between 4.6 and 6.3. The tremors occurred northwest of the Afghan border town of Herat, at a shallow depth of around ten kilometers.
There are frequent severe earthquakes in the region where the Arabian, Indian and Eurasian plates meet. More than 1,000 people died in a devastating earthquake in Afghanistan in 2022. After several decades of conflict, many houses are poorly built. Earthquakes therefore often cause major damage.