Third quake strikes Afghanistan as deaths rise

[Sanjeev]

With the death toll from the first earthquake still rising, Afghanistan's remote south-eastern area was rocked by a magnitude 5.6 earthquake Thursday night, the third in six days. When the shallow earthquake struck at 20:56 local time (15:36 GMT), residents of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces fled their homes in terror. Although there was no official record of casualties from Thursday night's earthquake, the BBC was informed by local medics that 17 injured persons had been taken to Kunar Provincial Hospital. According to reports from 25 communities, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA) reported that Sunday's earthquake had killed 1,368 people and injured 2,180 more.

 

[Starmix]

I felt so sad about those fatalities who were caught unaware by their volcanologist. If they had only been warned, they might not have succumbed to this worst fate. May they all rest in peace, and may God console the bereaved families.

 

[eLdavis]

This is so sad, i can't even imagine while still trying to come out from one, they are faced with another one.

 

[oliver991]

What makes this even worse is how vulnerable Afghanistan's infrastructure is. A 5.6 quake in a country with strict building codes might knock down some walls, but in rural areas with mud-brick homes it can flatten entire neighborhoods. That's why you see such high casualty numbers from what might look like "moderate" quakes elsewhere.

The fact that more than a thousand people have already been confirmed dead from Sunday's quake shows just how devastating these events are in regions that lack the resources to rebuild safely