Earthquake in Afghanistan Kills at Least 13, Nine of Them in Pakistan

People come out of a restaurant after a tremor was felt in Lahore, Pakistan March 21, 2023. (Reuters)
People come out of a restaurant after a tremor was felt in Lahore, Pakistan March 21, 2023. (Reuters)
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Earthquake in Afghanistan Kills at Least 13, Nine of Them in Pakistan

People come out of a restaurant after a tremor was felt in Lahore, Pakistan March 21, 2023. (Reuters)
People come out of a restaurant after a tremor was felt in Lahore, Pakistan March 21, 2023. (Reuters)

At least 13 people were killed and more than 90 injured in Pakistan and Afghanistan after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck late on Tuesday, government officials said.

At least nine people were killed and 44 injured in northwest Pakistan, a Pakistani government official said, and hospitals in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were put into a state of emergency overnight.

At least four people were killed and 50 injured in Afghanistan, a health ministry official there said.

Houses and buildings in both countries were also damaged, authorities said.

The quake was felt over an area more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) wide by some 285 million people in Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center said.

The epicenter was in the Hindu Kush mountains, in the sparsely populated northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, 40km southeast of Jurm village, at the considerable depth of 187km, the US Geological Survey said.

In Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province senior provincial official Abdul Basit said that addition to the dead and injured, at least 19 houses were damaged.

Shafiullah Rahimi, a spokesperson for Afghanistan's disaster mitigation ministry, said late on Tuesday that two people had been killed in the eastern province of Laghman.

Large parts of South Asia are seismically active because a tectonic plate known as the Indian plate is pushing north into the Eurasian plate.

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake in eastern Afghanistan killed more than 1,000 people last year.

In 2005, at least 73,000 people were killed by a 7.6 magnitude quake that struck northern Pakistan.



Israeli Military: Missile Fired from Yemen Intercepted

Activists hold up a banner denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel’s actions during the war with Hamas as they demonstrate at the entrance of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. Dutch authorities detained 19 activists who occupied the entrance to court. (AP Photo/Aleks Furtula)
Activists hold up a banner denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel’s actions during the war with Hamas as they demonstrate at the entrance of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. Dutch authorities detained 19 activists who occupied the entrance to court. (AP Photo/Aleks Furtula)
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Israeli Military: Missile Fired from Yemen Intercepted

Activists hold up a banner denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel’s actions during the war with Hamas as they demonstrate at the entrance of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. Dutch authorities detained 19 activists who occupied the entrance to court. (AP Photo/Aleks Furtula)
Activists hold up a banner denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel’s actions during the war with Hamas as they demonstrate at the entrance of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. Dutch authorities detained 19 activists who occupied the entrance to court. (AP Photo/Aleks Furtula)

Air raid sirens sounded across central Israel on Saturday including in Tel Aviv and large bangs were heard after a missile was fired from Yemen and intercepted, the Israeli military said.
Yemen's Houthi militias said later that they fired a ballistic missile at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.
They said the attack was timed to coincide with the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned to the country on Saturday after addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Friday.
This marks the second time in less than two days that the Houthis have launched an attack at Israel, following the interception of another missile early on Friday.
The Houthi militia earlier mourned Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, its ally in an Iran-backed alliance opposing Israel, following his death in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs.