71 PEOPLE MISSING IN AFGHAN QUAKES

  A written report by Agency France Press (AFP) claimed that two shallow quakes fewer than half one hour apart shook the mountainous Hindu Kush region on Monday, starting a slide of debris that smashed right into a remote village, burying mud brick houses to some depth up to 100 metres.

In Burka district, the worst-hit area within the province of Baghlan, individuals in the village of Mullah Jan said 71 people ended up being trapped. The official who asked to not be named described the probability of survival as “very slim”.

Officials have thus far confirmed that only three bodies are actually recovered, while six injured individuals have been rescued.

A bulldozer was at work digging through the rubble at Mullah Jan, based on Rafiullah Rasoolzai, spokesman to the disaster response agency, who said emergency supplies of food, water and shelter was brought in.



“Villagers told Afghan government representatives that 71 persons are missing,” he stated.

“They’re buried inside their house below between 30 and 100 metres of dirt and earth.”


Provincial governor, Munshi Abdul Majeed, earlier said the sheer amount of soil made digging work quite hard.

They` could possibly be dead as there is lots of soil and removing this is extremely, quite hard,” he said.

“We have sent excavators to the area but I don’t think they should be able to do much.”

Baghlan Police chief Assadullah Shirzad said around 100 security forces were boosting the search.

The first quake on Monday, with a magnitude of 5.4, struck at 9:32 am (0502 GMT) at a depth of 15 kilometres (10 miles) with the epicentre around 160 kilometres southwest in the area of Faizabad.

A more powerful tremor, measured at 5.7 magnitude, hit around 25 minutes later in almost the exact same area, The USA Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Buildings were felt shaking slightly in Kabul, around 170 kilometres southerly, during both quakes.

Northern Afghanistan and Pakistan are often hit by earthquakes, especially within the Hindu Kush range, which lies nearby the collision of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.