An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 killed at least 280 people in Afghanistan early on Wednesday, officials said, adding that hundreds of people were injured and the toll was likely to rise as information trickled in from remote mountain villages.
The quake struck about 44 km from the city of Khost, near the Pakistani border, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
Photographs on Afghan media showed houses reduced to rubble and bodies covered in blankets on the ground.Most of the confirmed deaths were in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika, where 255 people had been killed and more than 200 injured, said interior ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi."The death toll is likely to rise as some of the villages are in remote areas in the mountains and it will take some time to collect details," he said.
Shaking was felt by about 119 million people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, the EMSC said on Twitter.The disaster comes as Afghanistan has been enduring a severe economic crisis since the Taliban took over August, as U.S.-led international forces were withdrawing after two decades of war. Humanitarian aid has continued and international agencies such as the United Nations operate in the country.