Over 2,000 people have reportedly died in a strong earthquake that jolted Afghanistan on Saturday, 7 October, a Taliban government official said. The earthquake -- measuring 6.3 on the Richter Scale -- is one of the deadliest earthquakes to strike the country in the last 20 years.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Information and Culture spokesman Abdul Wahid Rayan told The Associated Press that the death toll is higher than originally reported.
Earlier on Saturday night, the United Nations (UN) had stated that the earthquake had claimed 100 lives and injured over 500 but added that the number of casualties were expected to rise as rescue operations continued.
The Quint could not independently verify the figures.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Afghanistan stated that the earthquake struck 40 km west of Herat City in Herat Province of western Afghanistan.
It was followed by three very strong aftershocks, measuring magnitude 6.3, 5.9 and 5.5, as well as lesser shocks, according to the United States Geological Survey.
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“Besides the 2,060 dead, 1,240 people are injured and 1,320 houses are completely destroyed,” The Associated Press quoted Rayan as saying. The government spokesperson called for urgent help and said that six villages have been destroyed and hundreds are trapped under the debris.
Telephone networks have reportedly been disrupted in Herat, many videos from the affected areas are bring widely circulated online.
While some videos showed hundreds of people in the streets outside their homes in Herat city, others show people -- including women and children -- trapped under the debris.
International aid is trickling in from agencies such as the UN, World Health Organisation (WHO) and Doctors Without Borders. Meanwhile, Afghan cricketer Rashid Khan said that he will donate all of his Cricket World Cup 2023 match fees to help the affected people.
"Soon, we will be launching a fundraising campaign to call upon those who can support the people in need," Khan wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
A powerful earthquake had jolted the mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan last year in June. The quake had killed at least 1,000 people and injured about 1,500.
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