Earthquake today: Another 6.3 magnitude quake jolts Afghanistan city

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck early Sunday in northwest of the Afghan city of Herat, the US Geological Survey said.

The quake hit at 0336 GMT, 33 kilometres (20 miles) from the city in an area of western Herat province where around 1,000 people were killed by a series of strong tremors over the past several days.

A magnitude 5.5 aftershock followed 20 minutes later. As per National Center for Seismology, the earthquake occurred at 9:26 IST and the depth of the quake was 10 km.

Abdul Qadeem Mohammadi, head doctor at Herat Regional Hospital told that so far 93 injured and one death have been registered. National disaster management officials said they were still investigating the scale of destruction.
“Herat's people are panicked and scared. It's Allah's blessing that it happened during the day, people were awake," 27-year-old shopkeeper Hamid Nizami told.

Earlier on 13 October, magnitude 4.6 on the Richter Scale had jolted Afghanistan, NCS had informed. According to NCS, the tremors shook the country at 6:39 am (IST) on Friday at a depth of 50 kilometres. On 11 October, US Geological Survey said that 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit 28 kilometers outside the capital of Herat province. As per USGC, the depth of the quake was 10.0 km.

As of October 13, OCHA Afghanistan has reported that over 19,250 individuals, comprising 3,197 families, have been directly affected by the earthquakes across various districts, including Zindajan (1,398), Injil (914), Kushk /Rabat-e-Sangai (385), Gulran (360), Herat (121), and Khosan (19). To date, 1,384 people (759 females and 625 males) are reported to have died and 1,853 people are injured (1,137 females and 716 males) by the earthquakes.