Government: Over 1,500 Feared Dead in Quake
March 26, 2002 03:45 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - More than 1,500 people are feared dead and 4,000 injured after a series of earthquakes struck northern Afghanistan Monday night and Tuesday, government officials said.
A Foreign Ministry official said the district capital of Nahrin, near the epicenter in the rugged Hindu Kush mountains, had been destroyed and a Defense 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 been killed.
The earthquakes 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.