Afghanistan Rattled Again by Quakes, Two Dead

16/04/2002| IslamWeb

KABUL (Reuters) - Earthquakes have rattled Afghanistan and two people were killed in the northern district of Nahrin where hundreds of people have died in a series of tremors over the last three weeks, local residents said on Monday.

They said a quake Sunday afternoon killed two men and injured five people in the Nahrin district village of Mohammad Dad.

Another tremor in the early hours of Monday morning shook wide areas of the country, but there were no immediate reports of deaths.

Pakistani seismologists said the Sunday quake measured 5.3 on the Richter scale, only a little less intense than the series of shallow quakes which killed some 1,000 people in Nahrin district late last month.

Another killed some 50 people last week and destroyed what the first earthquake had left of three villages in the Nahrin area.

The toll was relatively light because many people in the district had lost their homes in last month's quakes and were living in tents, aid workers said.

People in the area said the earthquakes also triggered landslides and blocked some of the few roads.

International aid agencies which rushed to help last month had enough food, tents and other equipment in the area, although the rain was hampering operations Monday, witnesses said.

SOURCE: AFGHANISTAN: (Reuters)

[photo image: Earthquake in N. Afghanistan February,