(Reuters) -Greater than 1,400 folks have been killed and over 3,100 injured after a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan round midnight on Sunday.
As rescue efforts proceed, here’s a take a look at why Afghanistan experiences frequent tremors, and the way their impression will be lowered:
ARE EARTHQUAKES COMMON IN AFGHANISTAN?
Hemmed in by rugged mountains, Afghanistan is liable to a variety of pure disasters, however its earthquakes trigger essentially the most fatalities, killing about 560 folks on common annually and inflicting annual damages estimated at $80 million.
Research point out a minimum of 355 earthquakes with a magnitude larger than 5.0 have hit Afghanistan since 1990.
WHY IS AFGHANISTAN PRONE TO TREMORS?
Afghanistan is positioned on the sting of the Eurasian tectonic plate, which shares a transgression zone with the Indian plate -implying the 2 might converge or brush previous one another – and can also be influenced by the Arabian plate to its south, creating one of many world’s most tectonically energetic areas.
The northward motion of the Indian plate and its thrust towards the Eurasian plate is normally accountable for Afghanistan’s quite a few quakes.
WHICH AREAS ARE VULNERABLE?
Jap and northeastern Afghanistan, particularly areas alongside its borders with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan, are notably liable to earthquakes.
This consists of the closely populated Kabul metropolis, which has the very best common estimated injury as a consequence of earthquakes, amounting to $17 million yearly, in accordance with a research.
Earthquakes are additionally notably harmful in Afghanistan’s mountains the place they’ll set off landslides, exacerbating lack of life and property.
WHICH WERE AFGHANISTAN’S WORST EARTHQUAKES?
Afghanistan has recorded round 100 “damaging” earthquakes since 1900.
Among the many worst in recent times was a magnitude 6 quake in 2022 that killed 1,000 folks. A number of quakes in a single month in 2023 collectively killed 1,000 folks and destroyed whole villages.
One in every of Afghanistan’s largest earthquakes, with a magnitude of seven.5, struck in 2015, killing 399 folks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
A number of the best devastation was seen in 1998 as two earthquakes shook Afghanistan inside three months – the primary killing 2,300 folks and the second 4,700.
HOW CAN THE COUNTRY BUILD RESILIENCE?
Research suggest new buildings be inbuilt an earthquake resistant method and current buildings be retrofitted to cut back probabilities of collapse.
Higher monitoring and early warning techniques should even be created for extra well timed alerts, whereas fault strains needs to be mapped utilizing geospatial and distant sensing applied sciences to allow relocation of individuals in weak areas, they counsel.
(Compiled by Sakshi Dayal; Modifying by YP Rajesh and Ros Russell)