Magnitude 6.3 earthquake jolts northern Afghanistan; tremors felt in Kabul

An Earthquake of magnitude 6.3 struck northern Afghanistan late Sunday into Monday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported. The quake hit the Kholm area near the city of Mazar-i-Sharif at a revised depth of 28 kilometres, and tremors were felt as far as the capital, Kabul, according to AFP correspondents.

The USGS had initially recorded the depth at 10 kilometres before updating the figure. The latest quake comes just two months after a powerful 6.0 magnitude tremor in eastern Afghanistan killed more than 2,200 people on August 31, marking one of the deadliest earthquakes in the country’s recent history.

Earthquakes occur frequently in Afghanistan, especially along the Hindu Kush mountain range where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates converge. “Since 1900, northeastern Afghanistan has been hit by 12 quakes with a magnitude above 7,” said Brian Baptie, a seismologist with the British Geological Survey.