Powerful earthquake rocks Pakistan and Afghanistan

Islamabad — A strong earthquake lasting for at least 30 seconds was felt across much of Pakistan Tuesday night, witnesses said. 

“People ran out of their houses and were reciting the Koran,” an AFP correspondent in Rawalpindi said, with similar reports coming from the capital Islamabad, Lahore and elsewhere in the country.

There were varying reports about the quake’s epicenter and strength, but the U.S. Geological Survey reported a 6.5 magnitude earthquake in the far northeast of Afghanistan, near the country’s border with Pakistan, at a depth of about 116 miles.   

There were no immediate reports of injuries, and the USGS assessed that there was a “low likelihood” of damage or casualties based on the location and strength of the temblor. 

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

More than 1,000 people were killed and tens of thousands made homeless after a 5.9-magnitude quake — the deadliest in Afghanistan in nearly a quarter of a century — struck the impoverished province of Paktika on June 22 last year.