A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck the Hindu Kush region in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck the Hindu Kush region in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.
The quake was at a depth of 188 km (116.81 miles), EMSC said.
Mountainous Afghanistan and the larger region of South Asia along the Hindu Kush mountains, where the Indian tectonic plate collides with the Eurasian plate to the north, have long been vulnerable to devastating earthquakes. Poor construction for homes, hospitals and other buildings put them at risk of collapse in earthquakes, while landslides remain common across the mountains of Afghanistan.
In 2015, a major earthquake that struck the country’s northeast killed over 200 people in Afghanistan and neighboring northern Pakistan. A similar 6.1 earthquake in 2002 killed about 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan. And in 1998, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tremors in Afghanistan’s remote northeast killed at least 4,500 people.