A massive rescue operation was underway in Afghanistan Monday after a strong earthquake and multiple aftershocks flattened homes in the impoverished nation, killing more than 600 people, the interior ministry said.
The earthquake struck just before midnight, shaking buildings from Kabul to neighbouring Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.
Near the epicentre in the east of the country, “610 people were killed and 1,300 were injured in Kunar province, with numerous houses destroyed”, spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani disclosed, adding that in neighbouring Nangarhar province 12 people were killed and another 255 injured.