Five earthquakes in a row shake India, Nepal and Afghanistan

New Delhi/Kathmandu (EFE).- The National Center for Seismology of India (NCS, in English) on Tuesday recorded five consecutive earthquakes between 2.7 and 6.2 with epicenters in India and Nepal, leaving at least nine injured, one person missing and some material damage.

The third earthquake, the largest, occurred at 14:51 local time (09:21 GMT) at a depth of five kilometers, with its epicenter in western Nepal, according to the NCS.

Another tremor of magnitude 4.6 at a depth of ten kilometers was recorded half an hour earlier at the same location, while two others of magnitude 4.3 and 3.0 were recorded in the northern Indian states of Uttarakhand and Assam respectively. , the Indian agency reported.

NCS also recorded another earthquake at 16:29 local time (10:59 GMT) with a magnitude of 4.7 at a depth of 10 kilometers in the city of Fayzabad in western Afghanistan.

According to Nepal Earthquake Research Center seismologist Chintan Timsina, “more than four magnitude 4 aftershocks occurred as of 3:06 p.m.,” he told EFE.

In addition, “there were many aftershocks below magnitude four,” he added.

However, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported only two near-simultaneous earthquakes of magnitude 4.9 and 5.7 with an epicenter in the Nepalese town of Dipayal Silgadhi, in the western part of the Himalayan country.

Nepal, which is the hardest hit

The tremors were felt in cities such as New Delhi and Kathmandu, and in some Nepalese cities damage to some houses was reported.

Among the most affected is Bajhang district, where at least nine injuries were reported while one person remains missing, district police spokesman Dipesh Chaudhari told EFE.

Moreover, “the initial report shows that several houses have been damaged in Bajhang district,” the head of the district office, Narayan Pandey, told EFE.

Bajhang is one of the most geographically remote and economically difficult areas in Nepal. The earthquake has caused further isolation in the area, blocking the main road connecting the district.

“We are making efforts to send machines to clear the road,” Pandey said.

Nepal and Afghanistan are among the countries most prone to natural disasters and have highly vulnerable populations, mostly poor, in addition to lacking sufficient infrastructure to deal with floods or earthquakes.

According to the Asian Preparedness Partnership (APP), an alliance created to coordinate emergency preparedness among Asian countries, Kathmandu is the national capital at the highest risk of earthquakes among 21 megacities around the world.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal in 2015

On April 25, 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, toppling multi-story buildings in Kathmandu and triggering landslides and avalanches in the mountains. Almost 9,000 people were killed and more than 22,000 injured.

This disaster also left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and caused damages worth almost 6.47 billion euros. More than seven years after the earthquake, reconstruction work has not been completed, slowed in part by the effects of the pandemic.

Afghanistan also suffered one of the biggest earthquake disasters in 1998 in the northern part of the country, when two earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.9 and 6 in February killed around 4,000 people. A few months later, at the end of May, another magnitude 7 earthquake hit the area again, causing around 5,000 deaths.