Afghanistan quake kills 12, including 8 from family who had just left Iran

An earthquake that struck Afghanistan overnight killed 12 people, including eight members of the same family, a government official and the Afghan Red Crescent Society said on Saturday. A neighbour who helped in rescue efforts said that the eight who died, on the outskirts of Kabul, were a refugee family recently returned from neighbouring Iran. The 5.8-magnitude quake struck at 8.42pm (1612 GMT) on Friday at a depth of 186km (115 miles) at the epicentre in northeastern Badakhshan province, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). “As a result of this earthquake, unfortunately, 12 people were killed and four people were injured,” deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat posted on his official X account. He said five houses were completely destroyed and 33 partially damaged in Kabul, Panjshir, Logar, Nangarhar, Laghman and Nuristan provinces, affecting a total of 40 families. Shaking was felt in many parts of the country, including the capital Kabul, according to Agence France-Presse journalists. “In the Gosfand Dara area of Kabul Province, eight members of a family died as a result of the earthquake,” Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said earlier. A child aged around two, named Aarash, was the only survivor from that household and Afghanistan’s disaster management agency said he had been injured in the tremor and was in hospital being treated for a head injury. “The other four people have been killed in the west of Kabul,” Afghan Red Crescent Society spokesman Abdul Qadeem Abrar told Agence France-Presse. The family of eight who died were among millions of Afghan refugees who have recently returned from Iran and Pakistan, after both countries launched crackdowns in 2023 on foreigners, particularly Afghans, living in their countries. They had arrived 15 days ago and were living in a tent on land next to Mohibullah Niazi’s home. The family head, Najibullah, who was about 50 years old, “had no other shelter”, Niazi said. “He was a very poor person.” The family had set their tent up next to a wall separating the plot of land from Niazi’s home, which stood on higher ground, in the village of Ittefaq on the eastern outskirts of the Afghan capital. Heavy rain over several days, which has led to deadly floods in many parts of Afghanistan, had left the ground sodden and soft. When the earthquake struck, the wall collapsed on the family. “My daughter shouted to me that a wall had fallen on them. The whole family ran, but there were so many big rocks,” Niazi recounted on Saturday as he stood at the scene. “We tried our best.” Piles of bricks and mud were all that were left, along with blankets, cooking utensils and other personal belongings salvaged from the rubble and set into a pile. “For about three minutes, I could hear the voices of these people,” Niazi said. “But we couldn’t do anything. There were two or three of us, but this was not the work of three people.” For most of the family - the father and mother, four daughters aged between 12 and 23, and two sons - it was too late. The rescuers could only recover their bodies. Niazi said he had hosted the family in his own home one night. On Friday, just half an hour before the earthquake struck, he had renewed the offer, telling the family they could spend the night in his own guest room to shelter from the cold and rain. “But they did not come with me,” he said. Afghanistan is frequently jolted by earthquakes, particularly along the Hindu Kush mountain range near where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet. A shallow magnitude 6 earthquake wiped out mountainside villages and killed more than 2,200 people in eastern Afghanistan in August, making it the deadliest tremor in the country’s recent history. In November, a 6.3 earthquake struck Samangan province in northern Afghanistan, killing at last 27 people and injuring more than 950. In October 2023 a 6.3 quake followed by strong aftershocks in western Afghanistan killed thousands of people. Meanwhile, heavy rain and storms have also killed at least 121 people over two weeks across Afghanistan and Pakistan, disaster officials in both countries said on Saturday. Stormy weather has caused floods and landslides, hitting homes and crops. Additional reporting by Associated Press

Afghanistan quake kills 12, including 8 from family who had just left Iran

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The group, who recently returned to live in a tent near Kabul, died when a wall collapsed on them, their toddler the only one left alive

The group, who recently returned to live in a tent near Kabul, died when a wall collapsed on them, their toddler the only one left alive