Oct. 7 (UPI) — A pair 6.3 magnitude earthquakes and several strong aftershocks jolted western Afghanistan on Saturday, resulting in at least 15 deaths and 40 injuries, emergency officials said.
The casualties came in three villages of the Zinda Jan district of Afghanistan’s Herat Province, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Disaster Management told reporters.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the first 6.3 quake came at 11:11 a.m. Saturday local time, or 2:41 a.m. EDT, and was centered 20 miles north-northeast of Zinda Jan. This was followed 30 minutes later by another 6.3 temblor in the same area of the far western terminus of the Hindu Kush mountain range.
In between the two large jolts, a magnitude 5.5 quake was felt, while a 5.9 aftershock was recorded shortly thereafter. In total, six quakes occurred in western Afghanistan on Saturday, the USGS said.
Both of the 6.3 earthquakes “occurred on east-west striking fault planes that dip to either the north or south,” the U.S. agency said. “The earthquakes occurred within the Eurasia plate in an intracontinental mountain belt.”
A magnitude 7.3 quake in the same area of western Afghanistan caused 1,567 fatalities in May 1997.
Saturday’s quakes were also felt in the eastern Iran, including the city of Mashhad in Khorasan Razavi province, as well by residents of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
