Afghanistan 6.6 Earthquake Shakes Major Cities

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Afghanistan 6.6 Earthquake Shakes Major Cities

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake that hit Afghanistan this morning was felt in a number of major cities across south-west Asia.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the quake initially measured as magnitude 7.1, struck close to its border with Tajikistan, at 10:28 GMT

The USGS said the quake struck one of the most seismically-active regions on earth. The area is located where the India and Eurasia plates collide.

Twitter reports said that several buildings were evacuated in New Delhi where the metro service was also halted.

The BBC reports:

The latest quake, in the sparsely-populated Hindu Kush mountains, struck at a depth of 210km, the USGS reported. It was the same depth as the 2015 quake.

At least 27 people were admitted to hospital in Peshawar, media in Pakistan reported. There were no immediate reports of significant damage.

In Delhi, some 620km (1,000 miles) from the epicentre, the metro train system was temporarily halted. The BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder said a number of aftershocks were felt in the Indian capital.

Post-quake landslides were a potential threat, said Ahmad Kamal, a spokesman at India’s National Disaster Management Authority.

The USGS says the earthquake took place in “one of the most seismically hazardous regions on earth”.

The Hindu Kush mountains sit on the corner of the Indian plate, rather than being at the front line of the continental collision, where the Himalayas are thrust upwards as India disappears beneath Eurasia at a rate of 40-50mm (2ins) per year.

tectonic_plates

It is in this rugged region that the sideways slip between India and Afghanistan meets the head-on impact of the Himalayan fault line. There are many small, interacting faults and forces pushing in different directions.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported on Saturday that the region had been shaken by a series of strong quakes centred on Hindu Kush in recent days.

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