An Afghan lady walks together with her kids amid particles after a strong earthquake struck Herat province in western Afghanistan on Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023.

Save the Children/through AP

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Save the Children/through AP

An Afghan lady walks together with her kids amid particles after a strong earthquake struck Herat province in western Afghanistan on Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023.

Save the Children/through AP

ISLAMABAD — A strong 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck western Afghanistan on Sunday, simply over every week after robust quakes and aftershocks killed 1000’s of individuals and flattened complete villages in the identical province.

The U.S. Geological Survey mentioned the most recent quake’s epicenter was about 21 miles exterior Herat, the provincial capital, and 5 miles beneath the floor.

Save the Children mentioned 4 folks have died and that Herat Regional Hospital has acquired 153 injured. Everything within the Baloch space of Rabat Sangi district has collapsed. Several villages have been destroyed, in response to the help group. Authorities have given decrease casualty numbers.

Sayed Kazim Rafiqi, 42, a Herat metropolis resident, mentioned he had by no means seen such devastation earlier than with the vast majority of homes broken and “people terrified.” Rafiqi and others headed to the hospital to donate much-needed blood.

“We have to help in any way possible,” he mentioned.

The earthquakes on Oct. 7 flattened entire villages in Herat, in one of the vital damaging quakes within the nation’s current historical past.

More than 90% of the folks killed every week in the past have been girls and youngsters, U.N. officers reported Thursday.

Taliban officers mentioned the sooner quakes killed greater than 2,000 folks throughout the province. The epicenter was in Zenda Jan district, the place the vast majority of casualties and harm occurred.

The preliminary quake, quite a few aftershocks and a second 6.3-magnitude quake on Wednesday flattened villages, destroying a whole bunch of mud-brick properties that would not face up to such power. Schools, well being clinics and different village services additionally collapsed.

Besides rubble and funerals after that devastation, there was little left of the villages within the area’s dusty hills. Survivors are struggling to come back to phrases with the lack of a number of members of the family and in lots of locations, residing residents are outnumbered by volunteers who got here to go looking the particles and dig mass graves.