New Delhi: At least 950 people were killed near the southeastern city of Khost on Wednesday in Afghanistan’s deadliest earthquake since 2002, officials have said. The US Geological Survey (USGC) said the quake was about 44 km (27 mi) from the city of Khost, near the Pakistani border. Images on Afghan media showed houses turned to rubble and bodies covered in blankets on the ground. The European-Mediterranean Earthquake Center (EMSC) placed the magnitude 6.1, although the USGC said it was 5.9.
Afghanistan, in particular, is a long history of earthquakes, many in the mountainous Hindu Kush region bordering Pakistan. The death toll has been worsened by multiple earthquakes and the remote locations of decades of war, which have left the infrastructure in a dire state.
Here is a list of earthquakes in Afghanistan that have killed more than 100 people over the past three decades:
1991 Hindu Kush earthquake
An earthquake in the rugged Hindu Kush killed 848 people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Soviet Union.
1997 Cayenne earthquake
The 7.2 magnitude earthquake on the border between Afghanistan and Iran killed more than 1,500 people in both countries and completely destroyed more than 10,000 homes.
FEB 1998, TAKHAR EARTHQUAKE
The quake in the far northeastern province of Takhar killed at least 2,300 people, with some estimates exceeding 4,000.
MAY 1998, TAKHAR EARTHQUAKE
A second 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck the same region three months later, killing 4,700 people in the same region.
2002 Hindu Kush Twin Earthquake Earthquake
A total of 1,100 people died in twin earthquakes in the Hindu Kush in March 2002.
2015 Hindu Kush earthquake
The 7.5-magnitude earthquake, one of the largest in the history of Afghanistan, struck Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan and India, killing a total of 399 people.