Earthquake hits Afghanistan, Pakistan

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake rocked parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least one child and injuring at least 15 others. The United States Geological Survey recorded the quake’s center in northeast Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. Television footage showed people in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, fleeing from schools and offices in panic. Izat Nazir Baluch, a local government official, said at least one girl died and eight others sustained injuries when roofs collapsed on mud-brick homes in the village of Lasbela in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Police and government officials said four schoolchildren sustained injuries when students stampeded out of their school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. In Afghanistan’s Badakshan region, three other people sustained injuries, according to Deputy Gov. Gul Mohammed Bedar. Mohammad Mustafa, acting district governor in Jarm, said authorities still had no communication from 52 villages. Witnesses in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, said they felt tremors from the quake. Similar reports came from the Indian capital of New Delhi.