A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck midday Thursday in the Hindu Kush in northeastern Afghanistan, the American Institute of Geological Survey (USGS) said.
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Three hours after the earthquake, Afghan authorities had reported no casualties.
Badakhshan province was hit by a strong earthquake, Moezuddin Ahmadi, director of information and culture in Faizabad, the provincial capital, told AFP.
“The initial information does not indicate any casualties, but we are conducting checks in areas close to the epicenter,” said the official contacted by phone.
The quake, measuring 6.4 on the “moment scale” used by the USGS, was felt even in buildings in Kabul, 300 kilometers from the epicenter, and in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, according to AFP offices.
The earthquake struck in Jurm district just before 2:00 p.m. (09:30 GMT).
Qari Inam, a resident of Sooch village in the same district, told AFP by telephone that he felt “strong shock”. “Fortunately, no victims were found, but cracks appeared on many houses.”
Afghanistan is a frequent site of earthquakes, particularly the vast Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies at the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
The worst earthquake in Afghanistan in recent years claimed around 5,000 lives in the Takhar and Badakhshan provinces in 1998.
Most recently, last October, three consecutive earthquakes in Herat, western Afghanistan, killed around 1,000 people and destroyed 10,000 homes.
Thousands of people in the affected region are still living in tents as winter has begun.
“It would be premature to say that the reconstruction phase has begun,” a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told AFP.