An earthquake in northern Afghanistan has killed between 2,500 and 4,000 people, according to conflicting reports coming from the region yesterday. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was sending a relief mission today to assess damage from the earthquake and bring emergency medical supplies to survivors.
Mr Laurent Corbaz of the ICRC headquarters in Geneva said the Afghan Red Crescent had radioed from the town of Taloqan, saying 2,500 people had died in Wednesday's quake in the isolated region.
But Mr Corbaz said the agency had no figure for casualties and considered the toll of 2,500 high. "It is a region which is difficult to reach and where toll figures are very problematic," Mr Corbaz said. "We are very careful on this."
However, the Afghan UN mission said yesterday that more than 4,000 bodies had so far been recovered.
The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted sources as saying the quake hit the city of Rustaq, 280 km north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, destroying 15,000 homes. Tremors of varying intensity rocked the mountainous area for hours afterwards.
News of the devastation in the isolated northern province of Tahkar, which borders the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, reached Kabul only yesterday, and details remained difficult to confirm.
The US Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado, put the magnitude of the quake at 6.1 on the Richter scale, as did Swedish seismologists. Uppsala University said this was not an unusually big tremor but added it could cause considerable damage. "It's not an extreme earthquake but if it's close to the surface and construction is poor, it could cause considerable damage," Mr Ronald Arvidsson said.
Afghanistan, a mountainous and thinly populated country wedged between Iran, the former Soviet Union and Pakistan, is in the throes of a protracted civil war that has taken its toll on communications and other infrastructure.
The Taliban Islamic militia, which controls the southern two-thirds of the country, has ordered its troops to stop fighting following the quake. "I order Taliban fighters on the front line to stop fighting. They should respond only if they are attacked," Mullah Mohammad Omar, the supreme chief of the Taliban, said in a statement.
As well as Rustaq, the worst-hit districts were Guzar Darra and Ganda Chashma, both in Takhar province.