Reuters
[Source: Reuters]
A magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck southeastern Afghanistan on Thursday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences said, the third tremor in the same region since Sunday, when one of the country’s deadliest quakes in years killed more than 2,200 people.
Naqibullah Rahimi, a spokesperson for the health department in Nangarhar province, said the quake’s epicentre was in the remote Shiwa district near the Pakistan border, with initial reports of damage in the Barkashkot area, though details were still being collected.
The tremor, at a depth of 10 km (six miles), followed the earlier quakes that flattened villages in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, left tens of thousands homeless, and injured more than 3,600 people.
Survivors have been left without shelter as aid groups warn of dwindling resources, with the United Nations and other agencies citing a critical need for food, medical supplies and shelter.
Rescue workers on Thursday pulled bodies from the rubble of homes razed in Afghanistan’s earthquakes as the confirmed death toll topped 2,200, while homeless survivors faced a bleak future with global aid agencies warning of dwindling resources.
Search operations continued in the quake-hit mountainous eastern areas, the Taliban administration said, announcing a new death toll of 2,205 with at least 3,640 people injured.
The first earthquake of magnitude 6, one of Afghanistan’s deadliest in recent years, unleashed widespread damage and destruction in the provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar on Sunday, when it struck at a shallow depth of 10 km (six miles).
A second quake of magnitude 5.5 on Tuesday caused panic and interrupted rescue efforts as it sent rocks sliding down mountains and cut off roads to villages in remote areas.
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