A strong earthquake killed at least 20 people in northern Afghanistan, authorities said on Monday, just months after another deadly tremor that left the country reeling.

The 6.3-magnitude quake struck overnight at a depth of 28 kilometres with the epicentre near the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

More than 20 people were killed and around 320 were injured in the provinces of Balkh and Samangan, health ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman told journalists on Monday morning, stressing that this was a preliminary toll.

He did not provide a province-wide breakdown of the casualties.

Expressing sorrow over the “tragic loss of lives in northern Afghanistan after the deadly earthquake near Mazar-e-Sharif”, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif posted on X that Pakistan “stands in solidarity with our Afghan brothers and sisters in this difficult hour”.

“Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and prayers for the swift recovery of the injured,” he said.

Residents of Mazar-i-Sharif, one of Afghanistan’s largest northern cities, scrambled into the streets due to fears their homes would collapse, an AFP correspondent observed.

The city’s famed Blue Mosque, a 15th-century landmark known for its vibrant tiles, was also damaged, an AFP journalist witnessed.

Pieces of the structure, particularly from one of its minarets, broke off and lay scattered across the mosque’s grounds, one of the country’s few remaining tourist spots.

Correspondents in the capital Kabul, around 420km to the south, also said they felt shaking.

Power supply company DABS said imported electricity lines from Uzbekistan had been cut off due to the earthquake, leaving parts of nine provinces without power, Tolo News reported.

The Afghan Taliban defence ministry said parts of Balkh and Samangan provinces were the most affected, resulting in fatalities among a number of citizens.

Military Rescue and emergency assistance teams reached the area immediately and began operations to rescue people, transport the injured, and assist affected families, it said in a statement.

The USGS issued an orange alert in its PAGER system, which is an automated system that produces information on the impact of earthquakes, and indicated that “significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread”.

Videos of rescue efforts being carried out to save people trapped under rubble and images of fallen debris in buildings were shared on the social media platform X.

One video showed rescuers pulling what appeared to be dead bodies from rubble. Reuters could not immediately verify the footage and the images.

Active faults

Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, particularly along the Hindu Kush mountain range, near where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet.

Many homes in the predominantly rural country — devastated by decades of war — are shoddily built.

It often takes hours or days to travel by steep roads and paths to remote villages, which are often cut off from help during disasters or poor weather.

Poor communication networks and infrastructure in mountainous Afghanistan have hampered disaster responses in the past, preventing authorities for hours or even days from reaching far-flung villages to assess the extent of the damage.

It is the latest natural disaster for the Taliban government, which has faced three major deadly earthquakes since taking over Afghanistan in 2021, even as the foreign aid that formed the backbone of the country’s economy has dramatically dropped.

In August, a shallow 6.0-magnitude quake in the country’s east wiped out mountainside villages and killed more than 2,200 people.

Large tremors in western Herat, near the Iranian border, in 2023, and in eastern Nangarhar province in 2022 killed hundreds and destroyed thousands of homes.

The United Nations and aid agencies have warned that hunger is rising among the Afghan population.

The isolated country is suffering from a humanitarian crisis compounded by drought, economic restrictions on the banking sector, and the pushback of millions of Afghan citizens from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan.

Additional input from Reuters