Afghanistan quake kills 12, including 8 members of same family

KABUL: 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.

The 5.8-magnitude quake struck at 8:42 pm (1612 GMT) on Friday at a depth of 186 kilometres (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 AFP 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 was the only survivor from the household and Afghanistan’s disaster management agency said the boy had been injured in the tremor.

“The other four people have been killed in the west of Kabul,” Afghan Red Crescent Society spokesman Abdul Qadeem Abrar told AFP.

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.