Advanced earthquake sites.
This shows the horror of the Earthquake in Afghanistan, with 119 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India within 500 kilometers of the epicenter feeling tremors. In Afghanistan, 280 people have been killed and 250 injured, and the death toll continues to rise.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Afghan earthquake occurred about 46 kilometers southwest of the city of Khost (32.95 degrees north latitude, 69.48 degrees east longitude), that is, the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the main earthquake was 5.9 magnitude, the second aftershock was 4.5 magnitude, the depth of the epicenter was about 10 km, and the epicenter was about 6 degrees strong.
However, according to the China Seismological Network, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake occurred in Afghanistan (32.95 degrees north latitude, 69.48 degrees east longitude) with a depth of 30 kilometers.
Whatever happens in this earthquake, it has added to the poverty of Afghanistan.
Some people may ask that the 6.1 earthquake in China has almost no casualties, at most it is a stone on the road, but why has the 5.9 earthquake in Afghanistan caused so many injuries?
I believe that through the pictures at the beginning, you have seen that in Afghanistan, most of the houses are earth bungalows, which were very common in the Xinjiang region of the mainland decades ago or have poor seismic performance, and suffered heavy casualties in the event of a major earthquake.
Earthquake distribution map of Central Asia since 1964; Red: 0-50 km depth; Green: 50-100 km depth; Blue: 100-250 km depth
Afghanistan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries.
For example, on October 26, 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan, and due to the depth of the source of 210 kilometers, the number of casualties was relatively small, with about 300 people killed and thousands injured.
But in 2002, a similar magnitude 6.1 earthquake killed some 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan.
In 1998, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck the remote northeast of Afghanistan, killing at least 4,500 people.
That's because Afghanistan sits on an orogenic belt where the Indian Plate collides with the Eurasian Plate in the north.
50 million years ago, the collision of the Eurasian plate and the Indian plate created not only the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, but also the Hindu Kush Mountains, a folded mountain range in Afghanistan, where the Indian plate is like a bull horn, deeply embedded in the depths of the Eurasian plate continent, the western arc top of the Himalayan arc orogenic belt, so it is called the "Western Tectonic Knot" by the geological community.
Earthquakes and ruptures around Afghanistan
Afghanistan sits on the Eurasian Plate, and over the Hindu Kush Mountains is the Indian Plate where the Plain of Pakistan is located. Today's Indian plate continues to dive northward, squeezing the Eurasian plate, creating frequent earthquakes on the Afghan-Palestinian border.
So Afghanistan has long been vulnerable to devastating earthquakes, and secondary landslides following earthquakes are common in the Afghan mountains.
Resources:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov
https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1137/downloads/pdf/OF07-1137_508.pdf#:~:text=The%20history%20of%20destructive%20earthquakes%20in%20Afghanistan%20spans,May%201998%20that%20killed%20an%20estimated%204%2C000%20people.