On Saturday evening an ear-shaking 6.2-magnitude tremor made its presence felt in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan as far as Pakistan, the northern part of India and the neighboring countries. No immediate reports of damage or casualties.
The quake happened at 7.04 pm IST on the night, at a depth of 215 kilometres, according to the preliminary seismic data. The epicentre was about 81km from Kalafgan in the North Eastern part of Afghanistan. Although the earthquake happened deep beneath the surface of the earth, the tremors were felt over a large geographical area, because of the great depth of the intrusion.
In regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwest India residents felt the shaking, and seismic activity was felt throughout China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.
Although its effects are subject to many conditions, a seismic event of 6.2 magnitude can be considered a strong earthquake event and cause significant damage, depending on other factors like earthquake’s depth, distance between epicentre and inhabited zones and the feasibility of local structures. However, the deep-focus earthquakes tend to cause lesser surface damages than the shallow earthquakes of similar size.
There were no reports of injuries or significant structural damage right after the quake in the affected countries, but they are being closely watched.
The National Centre for Seismology (NCS) also verified the earthquake, quoting the magnitude, epicentre and hypocentre of the earthquake event in its social media post.
Afghanistan is a seismically active area of the world and earthquakes have occurred frequently in the Hindu Kush region because the Indian plate is converging with the Eurasian plate there.