Earthquake: Rescuers Search For Survivors In Northern Afghanistan

Rescue workers on Monday scrambled to pull out survivors, and the dead, from beneath the rubble two days after the Northwestern city of Herat and its surroundings were struck by the deadliest earthquakes to rattle Afghanistan in years.

Authorities said at least 2,400 people were killed and many more injured in the quakes, which were among the world’s deadliest this year after tremors in Turkey and Syria, in which an estimated 50,000 people were killed.

Neighbours Pakistan and Iran have offered to send rescue workers and humanitarian aid, while China’s Red Cross Society offered cash relief aid.

“The operation is still going on, still some people are being pulling out of the rubble,” the Spokesman of Herat’s Governor, Nissar Ahmad Elyias, said, adding that more than a dozen villages around Herat were also affected.

Many buildings in Herat city were relatively unaffected, but the mediaeval minarets of its famous mosques sustained some damage, photographs on social media showed.

REUTERS