Terrain map showing the epicentre of the earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, close to the country’s border with Pakistan. Very strong shaking was felt close to the epicentre, and mostly in Afghanistan.

Earthquake devastates Afghanistan

A powerful earthquake struck a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border on June 22, killing more than 1,000 people, disaster management officials said, with around 2,000 people injured and 10,000 houses partially or completely destroyed.

The earthquake, measuring a magnitude of 6.1 according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), devastated the eastern province of Paktika about 160 km southeast of the capital Kabul. However, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported an earthquake of 5.9 magnitude.

Houses were reduced to rubble and bodies swathed in blankets lay on the ground, photographs on Afghan media showed.

Afghan men search for survivors amidst the debris of a house that was destroyed by an earthquake in Gayan, Afghanistan, June 23, 2022. REUTERS/Ali Khara

Afghanistan’s vulnerable buildings

Afghanistan is especially vulnerable to earthquakes as the entire country is located on two major active faults that have the potential to rupture and cause extensive damage.

Most homes in Afghanistan are built with sun-dried clay, burnt brick, stones and wood. They lack a good foundation and are often poorly constructed according to a 2021 paper published in the Journal of Disaster Risk Studies.

Structures are either burnt bricks with cement mortar or sun-dried brick masonry buildings with load bearing walls. The thickness of the walls ranges from 20 to 30 cm for the burnt bricks and about 40 cm to 80 cm for the sun-dried brick structures. These homes can be covered by large and often heavy roofs that often cave into the structure making them extremely vulnerable to seismic activity, according to the same report.

Illustrated diagram of the structure of the most common single-storey masonry buildings. Sun-dried brick buildings with barrel or dome shaped ceilings are one of many kinds of buildings. Other buildings have flat, heavy ceilings made with wooden plates and joists, and the load-bearing walls made of sun-dried mud bricks are covered with mud plaster. Many houses lack foundation, and weak connections between roof and walls, and between adjacent walls lead to an incomplete load path when earthquakes strike. In another building design, the house structure is made of burnt bricks and cement mortar with a roof of steel beams reinforced with burnt bricks and gypsum paste.

The central Asian country was rocked by its most deadly earthquake since 2000. Wednesday's quake was felt by 119 million people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre said.

Disaster experts and humanitarian workers said the impoverished hilly areas struck by the quake were especially vulnerable, with landslides and poorly built houses adding to widespread destruction.

The areas around the epicentre felt the strongest shaking, with some parts experiencing very strong shaking, or a reading of 7 on the USGS Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. The European Commission’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre estimated that almost 690,000 people live in the areas that experienced moderate to very strong shaking.

Population exposure to earthquake intensity

Three maps showing how much of the region’s population was exposed to the earthquake. Approximately 7,200 people experienced very strong shaking near the epicentre, most of them in Afghanistan. Approximately 110,000 people living further out from the epicentre experienced strong shaking, and 570,000 people living around the region experienced moderate shaking.

In 2015, the last major earthquake struck the remote Afghan northeast, killing several hundred people in both Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan.

The magnitude of the recent earthquake was comparatively lower than one in 2015, but has still caused widespread destruction and killed more people.

Magnitude measures the size of the seismic waves generated by an earthquake and not the strength. The scale is logarithmic, meaning a whole number increase in magnitude represents a 10-fold jump in the size of the earthquake.

For example, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7 is ten times larger than a magnitude 6 earthquake. The actual energy released increases even more rapidly with magnitude. The difference between a magnitude 7 and 6 quake is nearly 32 times stronger in terms of actual energy released.

How the recent quake compares

Earthquakes in Afghanistan of magnitude 4.5 or above since 1970

Scatter plot graphic that shows most earthquakes in the Afghanistan and Hindu Kush region have magnitudes between 4.5 to 5 but around 50 have occurred with magnitudes between 6 and 7 with the highest being an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 in 1921. Death tolls have been high; twin quakes in 2002 with intensities of 6.1 and 7.4 claimed more than 1000 lives while a magnitude 5.9 earthquake in 1998 claimed 2,300. The most recent earthquake was also of magnitude 5.9.

Large parts of South Asia are seismically active because a tectonic plate known as the Indian plate is pushing north into the Eurasian plate.

The earthquake occurred in an area that historically has not experienced as many massive earthquakes. The majority of the country’s earthquakes occur in an area northeast of Kabul.

Earthquakes of magnitude 5 or above since 1900

Terrain map showing earthquakes in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries. Afghanistan’s five highest magnitude earthquakes (7.4 to 7.8 magnitude) have occurred along the Hindu Kush mountain range in the country’s north-east region. The epicentre of the June 21 earthquake is close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates that runs through Pakistan and India.

Photos and video footage showed multiple people sifting and digging through rubble searching for victims as hundreds of homes were destroyed. Rescue operations are scant as authorities are using near-obsolete helicopters to airlift victims out of the affected area.

A Taliban helicopter takes off after bringing aid to the site of an earthquake in Gayan, Afghanistan, June 23, 2022. REUTERS/Ali Khara

Poor communications and a lack of proper roads are hampering relief efforts in a country already grappling with a humanitarian crisis which has deteriorated since the Taliban took over last August.

Rescue operations are over

Afghanistan is also grappling with a severe economic crisis. In response to the Taliban takeover last year, many countries imposed sanctions on Afghanistan's banking sector and cut billions of dollars in development aid.

“The rescue operation has finished, no one is trapped under (the) rubble,” Mohammad Ismail Muawiyah, a spokesman for the top Taliban military commander in the hardest-hit Paktika province, told Reuters.

The search for survivors had been called off, some 48 hours after the disaster struck. People have been pulled alive from the rubble of other earthquakes after considerably more time.

Note

Data as of June 24, 2022

Sources

European Union Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC); United States Geological Survey; Natural Earth; Shuttle Radar Topography Mission; Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies

Edited by

Simon Scarr and Gareth Jones