A new magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the city of Herat in northwestern Afghanistan on Sunday, the American Geophysics Institute (USGS) said, following several tremors including a devastating quake in the region since the start of the month.
The earthquake struck at 8:06 a.m. local time (3:36 a.m. GMT) with an epicenter 33 kilometers from the city of Herat in the province of the same name, where an earthquake killed a thousand people in early October.
On October 7, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake destroyed entire villages, claiming more than a thousand lives, 90% of them women and children, according to Unicef.
Another severe earthquake on October 11, whose epicenter was discovered around 30 kilometers north of Herat, caused panic among a traumatized population and left at least one dead and around a hundred injured.
Afghanistan is already suffering from a severe humanitarian crisis as foreign aid has largely been withdrawn since the Taliban returned to power.
For the Taliban authorities, who took power in August 2021 and have strained relations with international aid agencies, providing protection in large quantities will be a challenge as winter approaches.
Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, particularly in the Hindu Kush Mountains, near the interface between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
In June 2022, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake in the poor Paktika province in the southeast of the country left more than a thousand dead and tens of thousands homeless.