By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A 5.9-magnitude earthquake centred in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush region shook Pakistan’s capital and large swathes of the country’s north on Saturday evening, authorities said, capping a day of seismic activity that had already left three people injured in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) said the evening tremor struck at 6:35pm local time, with its epicentre in the Hindu Kush mountains at a depth of 178 kilometres. Tremors were felt across a wide arc spanning Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Chakwal, Mansehra, Shangla, Swat, Abbottabad, Taxila, Haripur and Buner.
Punjab’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) said the shaking also reached the provincial capital Lahore, as well as Faisalabad and Attock. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, residents reported tremors in Peshawar, Mardan, Charsadda, Swabi, Kohat, Karak, Malakand, Bajaur, Hangu, Wana and Lower Dir. Tremors were also felt in Neelum Valley and Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir.
A session of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly was briefly adjourned as the tremors struck.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or significant structural damage from the evening quake. Punjab Rescue 1122 spokesman Farooq Ahmad said his service had received no calls reporting injuries or damage. His KP counterpart, Bilal Faizi, said there were no immediate reports of damage from any district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Peshawar.
The PDMA said relevant authorities were inspecting buildings in affected areas and that the provincial control room and district emergency centres remained active.
In Swat, the shaking was sharp enough to drive residents into the streets. “It was very big here and it lasted for quite a long time,” said Daniyal Ahmad, a Swat resident. “People came out of their houses and women and children were seen crying in panic.”
The quake was also felt in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces of Khost and Nangarhar, according to Agence France-Presse.
Balochistan struck twice in morning hours
Hours before the evening tremor, two earthquakes had struck Balochistan in rapid succession, injuring at least three people and forcing scores of residents from their homes in remote districts.
The National Seismic Monitoring Centre (NSMC) recorded the first quake at a magnitude of 4.3, with its epicentre in the Barkhan district area at a depth of 42 kilometres. The stronger of the two, a 5.2-magnitude quake, followed with its epicentre located 52 kilometres northeast of Barkhan at a depth of 19 kilometres. The United States Geological Survey put that quake’s magnitude slightly higher, at 5.4, with a shallower depth of 10 kilometres, striking at 8:06am local time. The earlier tremor it placed at 5:45am.
The affected areas included Barkhan, Rakhni, Kohlu and Musakhail districts.
In Musakhail, two labourers were injured when the roof of a shop collapsed. A third man, identified only as Fazal, sustained injuries when his house collapsed in the Kingri area northwest of Musakhail town.
Local administration officials and PDMA teams moved into the affected districts and launched rescue operations. Cracks appeared in the walls of mud-brick houses across the area, and a large number of residents abandoned their homes and erected tents in open ground, according to local officials.
The Balochistan tremors were preceded by a 5.1-magnitude earthquake on Friday, whose epicentre the PMD placed 60 kilometres northeast of Kohlu, with shaking reported in the Zhob, Barkhan and Rakhni areas.
Country sits astride volatile tectonic boundary
Pakistan’s vulnerability to earthquakes stems from its position along the convergence zone of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, one of the most seismically active collision zones on earth.
The country has suffered a succession of destructive quakes in recent decades. A 5.8-magnitude tremor jolted Islamabad, Swat and Hunza in February. On Monday, a separate 5.9-magnitude earthquake had shaken Islamabad and parts of Punjab and KP. The 2005 Kashmir earthquake remains the country’s worst modern seismic disaster, killing more than 73,000 people and leaving millions homeless. In 2021, a quake in Balochistan’s Harnai district killed at least 20 people, with landslides hampering rescue efforts.
Experts have long warned that the rugged, mountainous terrain common to Pakistan’s most earthquake-prone regions compounds the difficulty of relief operations and makes advance preparedness essential.
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