An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale rocked several parts of North India and the subcontinent late on Tuesday night. The epicentre was in Afghanistan and the affected countries included Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan, reports said.
According to a report on Afghanistan’s Tolo News, several provinces of the country, including capital Kabul, felt strong tremors. Quoting the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the report said the earthquake was of 6.5 magnitude and its epicentre was 40km south southeast of the Jurm district of Badakhshan, near the borders with Pakistan and Tajikistan.
The report said there was no information about any possible damage or casualties at the time of writing.
Taking to Twitter, Islamic Emirate spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said though the intensity was strong, no casualties had been reported yet from Badakhshan, Kunduz, Takhar and Panjshir provinces.
Sharafat Zaman Amerkhail, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health, however, said the heads of all medical centres had been directed to prepare their staff to tackle possible casualties, Tolo News reported.
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Tremors In Pakistan
Meanwhile, tremors were felt in Pakistan too and the country’s meteorological department said the earthquake was measured at 6.8, and the epicentre was in the Hindu Kush mountain range near the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan.
Magnitude : 6.8
Epicentre: Hindukush Region, Afghanistan.#earthquake pic.twitter.com/YiBs5qaefF
— Pak Met Department محکمہ موسمیات (@pmdgov) March 21, 2023
Only last year, an earthquake of 6.1 magnitude killed more than 1,000 people in eastern Afghanistan.
South Asia has many of its parts seismically active because a tectonic plate, known as the Indian plate, which is said to be pushing north into the Eurasian plate.
According to Professor Subhadeep Banerjee from Geotechnical Engineering Division of the Department of Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, the entire Himalayan belt is extremely vulnerable to earthquakes because it falls on the junction between the Eurasian Plate and the Indian Plate. “The two tectonic plates move relative to each other. That is why, there is a lot of seismic activity in the Himalayan belt. Several regions of northeast India fall under high seismic zones,” he told ABP Live last month after the Turkiye-Syria earthquakes.
