A 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan on Wednesday and tremors were felt as far India and Pakistan, where one girl was killed and 11 people were injured.
The quake hit at 12:37 IST near Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan in the Hindu Kush mountains at a depth of 191 km, the US Geological Survey said.
AFP news agency reported that frightened residents ran out of homes and shops in Kabul. No casualties were immediately reported in Afghanistan, the spokesman for the country’s National Disaster Management Authority told 1TV.
In Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore, homes, offices and schools were quickly evacuated.
Mild tremors were also felt in New Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir.
Girl killed in Pakistan
In Pakistan’s Quetta town, one girl was killed after the roof of her house collapsed in the earthquake. Deputy Commissioner Shabir Mengal said there were also incidents in other parts of Quetta, resulting in injuries to a dozen people.
He said some villages in Balochistan province also felt the tremors. “The injured have been rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Emergency has been declared in all hospitals.”
Rescue teams were also dispatched to the nearby Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to assess reports of damage.
However Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority did not expect serious losses, a spokesman said.
Girder slips off in Srinagar
A girder of the under-construction Jehangir Chowk-Rambagh flyover in Srinagar slipped off pillars near Aloochibagh due to the earthquake that shook Kashmir on Wednesday, officials said.
No one was hurt in the incident.
The girder slipped off the pillars and fell on a crane which was used to put it on two pillars during the intervening night, Minister for Works Naeem Akhtar told PTI .
“The girder had just been installed on the pillars and had not been fixed yet.There is no structural damage to the flyover project due to the earthquake,” Mr. Akhtar said.
An official of the Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA), the executing agency of the flyover project, said no one was hurt in the incident.
Mild tremors jolt Rajasthan
Panicked residents jumped out of buildings on Wednesday when mild tremors shook parts of Rajasthan, after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake jolted the Afghanistan- Tajikistan border region.
A Met department official in Jaipur said the tremors, which lasted for a few seconds in the afternoon, were felt in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Ajmer and Nagaur.
Police said there were no reports damage to property or loss of life due to the tremors.
The epicentre of the quake was near the Afghanistan- Tajikistan border at a depth of around 190 km.
The devastating quake of 2015
AFP said the epicentre was near Afghanistan’s Jarm, which was hit by a devastating 7.5 magnitude quake in October 2015 that triggered landslides and flattened buildings, killing more than 380 people across the region.
Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
Aid agencies have stressed need for greater disaster preparedness in the war-torn country, which remains extremely susceptible to recurring natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and landslips.
