What we all know and what we do not

A 6.0 magnitude earthquake has struck Afghanistan’s mountainous japanese area, with authorities saying a whole bunch of individuals have been killed.

The quake hit at 23:47 native time on Sunday (19:17 GMT) and its epicentre was 27km (17 miles) away from Jalalabad, the nation’s fifth-largest metropolis, in japanese Nangarhar province.

It was shallow – solely 8km deep – and was felt 140km away within the capital, Kabul, in addition to in neighbouring Pakistan. Hundreds of individuals are thought to have died.

The preliminary quake was adopted by a variety of giant aftershocks, that are thought to have prompted additional deaths.

Details are nonetheless rising and it could possibly be a while earlier than the extent of the injury and variety of deaths is understood.

Initial reviews point out vital casualties and widespread injury throughout elements of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.

These mountainous areas are extraordinarily difficult to achieve even in one of the best of instances, which is hampering rescue and aid operations.

More than 600 individuals are feared useless, the Taliban’s inside ministry has stated, however warns there’s nonetheless no clear loss of life toll.

The BBC has been advised that the highway resulting in the epicentre has been blocked due to a landslide, so the Taliban authorities is utilizing helicopters to get individuals out.

Multiple sources from the federal government have stated that dozens of homes are buried below the rubble. Aid from worldwide organisations has been requested.

Access by highway to the worst-hit areas remains to be blocked, however a whole bunch of houses are more likely to have been destroyed, in keeping with Salam Al Janabi from the UN youngsters’s charity Unicef.

The earthquake got here within the wake of flash flooding over the weekend which left not less than 5 useless, in keeping with native media. The flood, which prompted landslides and broken infrastructure, additionally quickly disrupted visitors between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As we now have reported, the character of the terrain means it’s troublesome to entry and there are restricted communications – that means it’s going to take longer to get updates on the scenario. There can be more likely to be injury to infrastructure, making it even more durable to achieve affected areas.

During earlier main earthquakes, the loss of life toll jumped up steeply as soon as entry to the affected areas was established.

However, there are different elements that hamper each our capability to get correct details about the scenario and in getting help into the affected areas.

Since August 2021 the nation has been below the management of the Taliban, whose authorities a lot of the world doesn’t recognise.

The return of the hardline Islamist group to energy sparked an exodus of worldwide journalists, with organisations just like the BBC pulling a lot of their workers from the nation.

Several help companies and NGOs additionally suspended their work in Afghanistan in consequence – that means there are fewer methods to confirm what is going on there.

However, there are not any restrictions on permitting in worldwide help.

Afghanistan was pushed into financial collapse when the Taliban took over and greater than 23 million Afghans at the moment are in want of humanitarian help, in keeping with the International Rescue Committee.

Most overseas donations to Afghanistan have been suspended and worldwide sanctions, which date again to when the Taliban had been first in energy within the Nineties, are nonetheless in place – though exemptions have been made for humanitarian aid.

Prior to the Taliban takeover, about 80% of Afghanistan’s finances got here from overseas donors. This funded almost all public healthcare, which has since collapsed.

Jalalabad’s foremost hospital – the most important medical facility near the epicentre – is already overwhelmed, being proper on the centre of the crossing level for the tens of thousand of Afghans being deported from neigbouring Pakistan.

Afghanistan’s monetary property overseas (primarily held within the US) have additionally been frozen, whereas the abrupt freeze on US Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this yr has considerably affected help supply.

Afghanistan may be very liable to earthquakes as a result of it’s situated on prime of a variety of fault traces the place the Indian and Eurasian plates meet.

Earthquakes occur when there’s sudden motion alongside the tectonic plates which make up the Earth’s floor. Fractures known as fault traces happen the place the plates collide.

In 2023, a sequence of quakes in Herat province killed more than 1,000 people. In 2022, Paktika province was struck by a quake which additionally killed greater than 1,000.

Shallow earthquakes are frequent within the nation and are extra harmful, as seismic waves have much less of a distance to journey to the Earth’s floor and due to this fact retain a lot of their energy.

Buildings in Afghanistan additionally are usually product of timber, mud brick or weak concrete, which aren’t quake-resistant.

A whole lot of injury additionally comes from landslides attributable to earthquakes, which might flatten homes in mountain villages and block rivers, inflicting flooding.