Kabul, Oct 19 (EFE).- A magnitude-4.1 tremor was registered on Tuesday in Afghanistan’s northwestern Herat province, which has been rocked by a series of powerful earthquakes in the last two weeks that have killed over a thousand people.
However, no casualties or structural damage were reported on Tuesday after the minor earthquake struck at 7.19 am with the epicenter situated at a depth of 10 kilometers, around 30 kms away from Herat’s Qarabagh district headquarters, according to the United States Geological Service.
“Luckily there are not any causalities reported so far,” the Herat provincial governor’s spokesperson Mawlawi Eliyas told EFE.
Afghanistan is situated within the Hindu Kush mountain range, an area known for its high seismic activity due to which earthquakes are often registered in the surrounding regions.,
The country is highly susceptible to natural disasters, and its vulnerable population and inadequate infrastructure exacerbate the challenges posed by such events.
Herat was struck by a series of earthquakes of up to 6.3-magnitude on Oct. 7, followed by aftershocks of considerable intensity, which destroyed around 20 towns and killed over 1,000 people
The tremors have continued in the subsequent two weeks, with the last major earthquake – of magnutide-6.5 – being recorded on Sunday, which killed at least one person, while dozens were injured.
Thousands of people have also been rendered homeless by the earthquakes, and continue to sleep outdoors due to lack of relief measures and fears of fresh earthquakes, amid shortages of basic necessities such as food, medicine and water supply.
The approaching winter has led to the Taliban government speeding up relief and rehabilitation efforts in the area, although various nonprofits on the ground have flagged a lack of coordination in the relief operations by local authorities. EFE
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