The 6.3 magnitude earthquake on Saturday morning in Herat province, in western Afghanistan, caused extensive damage and the deaths of hundreds (if not thousands) of people, according to estimates released so far. The main shock followed by some less energetic earthquakes in the following hours affected areas that were difficult to reach and with which to contact, making gathering information on deaths, injuries and damage is more complex. The Taliban government has said there could be thousands of deaths, but checks are still ongoing and it will likely take days before more reliable calculations are available.
A few hours after the earthquake, the director of public health in the province of Herat, an important city on the border with Iran and located 40 kilometers from the epicentre, said that 14 people had died and 78 were injuries, but that the number would soon increase. The director of the Herat provincial hospital had then told a BBC News that at least 255 people had died and nearly 500 were injured, but the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had provided a preliminary and still being verified figure of 320 deaths.
In the same note, the UN cited 465 homes destroyed and another 135 damaged, while local authorities said there had been several landslides in rural and mountainous areas. The latest budget was provided by Abdul Wahid Rayan, spokesperson for the Ministry of Information and Culture, what he said that according to Taliban government estimates there are now more than 2 thousand dead and more than 9 thousand injured, around 1,300 houses have been destroyed or damaged and hundreds of people are still trapped under the rubble.
Disaster authority spokesman Mohammad Abdullah Jan said that, in addition to causing much damage in Herat, the earthquake affected four villages in particular in the Zenda Jan district, a few kilometers west of the city. Several ambulances from the World Health Organization in Afghanistan have been sent to the district to take the injured people to hospital, but according to several witnesses the rubble of the destroyed buildings has blocked some roads and is hindering rescue efforts.
Due to the lack of telephone and internet connection there are not many videos and photos, but the few that are circulating show many people on the streets in the city of Herat. According to 2019 World Bank data, approximately 1.9 million people live in the province.
#Afghanistan has just been hit by a devastating earthquake, second one in two months, killing and injuring hundreds of people.
Our thoughts are with the families who have lost their loved ones and homes across the Western region. pic.twitter.com/zi9gsx2dSC
— World Food Programme in Afghanistan (@WFP_Afghanistan) October 8, 2023
Afghanistan is often affected by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In June 2022, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck the eastern province of Paktika and caused the deaths of at least a thousand people, injuring around 1,500.