Afghanistan: The deadliest earthquake in Afghanistan in two decades; death toll exceeds 1,000;

KABUL: Afghanistan – A powerful 5.9 magnitude earthquake shook eastern Afghanistan overnight, causing homes of mud-brick and cinder block to collapse over sleeping families, adding a new emergency to a country that has already endured much suffering.

The Taliban's state-run news agency reported more than 920 people were killed and more than 600 more injured. They cited the deputy state minister for natural disaster management, Mawlavi Sharfuddin Muslim. It was not possible to immediately confirm that number, because the earthquake hit remote areas.

Giving a sense of the scale of destruction, the Bakhtar News Agency uploaded the video of an unnamed man whose cellphone swung around to catch homes crumpled in the morning light.

"I'm doing this video to show that all people here are under the building," he says. "Under that house, five people. This house, six people." He turns to another pile of rubble: "And in this house, 13 dead bodies still under," he says. Swinging his camera further up the hill, he says, "All the village completely is destroyed."

An image shared by the news agency showed men extracting what appeared to be a small body wrapped in a blanket out of the rubble, one man lighting the scene with what appeared to a small flashlight clenched between his teeth. A later video showed men lying on gurneys amid the rubble.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the earthquake originated at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers — around 6.2 miles.

U.S. Geological Survey

The hardest hit areas were remote farming villages in the eastern Afghan provinces of Paktika and Khost – so remote that Afghan authorities dispatched seven helicopters and a medical team to help with the rescue mission.

Those provinces border the rugged mountains of northwest Pakistan. A legislator who represents one of those neighboring Pakistani districts, Mohsin Dawar, shared images with NPR that showed homes strewn in piles of rubble. He said so far, it was unclear what happened to the men, women and children who had been sleeping in them.

Taliban officials expresse their condolences and called on Afghans to help each other — and many are doing so. The Afghan Red Crescent society said on Twitter that it was dispatching aid to affected areas.

د #پکتیکا په برملې، زیړوک، نکې او ګیان ولسوالیو کې بېګانۍ زلزلې له کبله ۲۵۵ کسانو ژوند له لاسه ورکړی او ۱۵۵ ټپیان شوي دي.
ځايي چارواکي وايي، چې امکانات نشته که له مرکز څخه بېړنۍ پاملرنه ونه شي ښايي د مړیو شمېر لا نور ډیر شي. pic.twitter.com/Ln3RLdmCUH

— Bakhtar News Agency (@BakhtarNA) June 22, 2022

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