A big earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 struck Afghanistan and Pakistan on Friday night. It killed at least eight people in Kabul. This earthquake also triggered emergency alerts in all the areas that were affected.
The earthquake started in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which’s about 150 kilometres east of Kunduz. The people who study earthquakes said that it began deep in the ground more than 180 kilometres down which is why it was felt in a lot of different places even though it was not extremely strong.
People in cities in Pakistan like Islamabad, Peshawar, Swat and Chitral felt strong shaking and got really scared so they ran out of their buildings. In Afghanistan the city of Kabul was hit the hardest and the people in charge said that many people died and they told the hospitals and emergency services to be ready for casualties.
The health ministry in Afghanistan sent teams to help people who got hurt and the local authorities are still trying to figure out how much damage was done in the remote and mountainous areas. They got everything for an emergency really quickly because they know that their country can get hurt by earthquakes easily.
This region, the Hindu Kush range gets a lot of earthquakes because of the way the ground is moving. Afghanistan has had some bad earthquakes in the past few years and many people died, especially in the countryside where the houses are made of mud bricks and are not strong.
The people in charge are still trying to figure out how much damage was done in this earthquake but they are warning that more people might have died and they just do not know about it yet. The rescue teams are working hard to get to the people who need help but it is not easy because the conditions are really tough.
This earthquake is a reminder that this region can get hurt by disasters and they need to get better at being prepared and making their buildings stronger. The earthquake is a deal and the people need to be ready for it. They need to make sure that they can help each other when something, like this happens. Afghanistan and Pakistan need to be prepared for earthquakes. They need to make sure that they can respond quickly when an earthquake happens.
