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A massive earthquake rocked a remote mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least 1,000 people and injuring 1,500 more.
Officials warned the grim toll, one of the highest caused by a temblor in decades, may still continue to climb. Hundreds of homes and buildings were also toppled in the early-morning chaos, leaving many people still trapped beneath the rubble, Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada told the state-run Bakhtar News Agency.
The magnitude 6.1 quake struck about 30 miles southwest of Khost, a provincial capital near the border with Pakistan, shortly after 1:30 a.m. local time, and with a depth of about six miles. While powerful, an earthquake of that magnitude wouldn’t typically inflict such extensive devastation in other parts of the world, said Robert Sanders, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. But the remote area, where homes and other buildings are poorly constructed and landslides are common, are particularly vulnerable to earthquake damage.
With News Wire Services
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