Hundreds feared dead in Afghan earthquake
More than 1,500 people are feared dead and 4,000 injured after a series of earthquakes struck northern Afghanistan on Monday night and Tuesday, government officials said.
A Foreign Ministry official said the district capital of Nahrin, near the epicentre in the rugged Hindu Kush mountains, had been destroyed and a Defence Ministry spokesman said 1,500 homes had crumbled.
The United Nations said earlier that initial reports from local officials and aid agencies said more than 100 people had died in the quakes, which registered between five and six on the Richter scale.
"More than 1,500 people are said to have died in the quake," an aide to interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai told Reuters.
"Mr Karzai is chairing an emergency meeting of all ministries at this moment to find ways to deal with this tragedy," he said.
The Defence Ministry spokesman told Reuters: "Our reports say there are 1,500 dead, 4,000 injured, at least 1,500 homes destroyed and 20,000 people are homeless."
"The district capital of Nahrin was destroyed," he said of a city of mainly mud buildings in the foothills of the Hindu Kush.
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