Earthquake

EXPLAINER

At least five people killed in deadly earthquake close to the capital city Dhaka on Friday.

A powerful earthquake shook Bangladesh close to the capital city, Dhaka, on Friday, killing at least five people and injuring many others, the government said.

Here is what we know so far.

What happened?

An earthquake of magnitude 5.5 hit Bangladesh at 10:38am (04:38 GMT), the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The shaking lasted for 26 seconds.

Dhaka resident Shadman Sakif Islam told Al Jazeera that “small ripples” he noticed in his coffee were followed by a “massive shake that started occurring without any warning” as the earthquake took hold.

“My chair and the table started shaking wildly, and I was stuck there 10-15 seconds without processing what was going on,” he added.

“I never felt anything like this in my whole life … I felt like riding on a boat, riding massive waves one after another,” he added.

Where in Bangladesh did the earthquake hit?

The tremor was felt near the city of Narsingdi, which is 33km (16 miles) from Dhaka. Many buildings in Dhaka sustained damage from the resulting quake.

The epicentre was in Narsingdi’s Madhabdi district, according to the Bangladesh Meteorological Department.

The tremors were felt as far away as in the neighbouring Indian city of Kolkata, more than 325km (about 200 miles)  from the epicentre. No casualties have been reported there.

Narsingdi is famous for its textile craft and garment industry.

What do we know about the casualties?

According to government figures, at least five people have been killed and roughly 100 people have been injured.

Local media has reported higher death toll figures, but these have not been confirmed.

On Friday, Dhaka-based DBC Television reported that at least six people had died in the capital – three when a building roof and wall collapsed and three pedestrians who were struck by falling railings.

Are earthquakes common in Bangladesh?

Earthquakes do not take place in Bangladesh very frequently, despite the country being close to the boundaries of the Indian, Eurasian and Burmese tectonic plates and thus, seismically vulnerable.

In 2023, an earthquake of magnitude 5.8 struck near Sylhet in northeastern Bangladesh, according to the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ). There were no reports of casualties or major damage from the quake.

In 2021, a magnitude-6.1 earthquake hit the border between India and Myanmar. Tremors were felt in Bangladesh’s Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar. There were no confirmed deaths in Bangladesh.

Magnitudes are based on a logarithmic scale, meaning for each whole-number increase on the scale, the magnitude is increased by a factor of 10.

Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Dhaka, said, “It was one of the biggest earthquakes in recent history and was very close to the capital city. The entire city was in panic. Social media videos have shown buildings shaking.”

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake has shaken northern Afghanistan, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 500, a health official says, adding that the numbers could increase.

The quake’s epicentre on Monday was located 22km (14 miles) west-southwest of the town of Khulm, and it struck at 12:59am (20:29 GMT on Sunday) at a depth of 28km (17 miles), the United States Geological Survey said.

Sharafat Zaman, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Health, said 534 injured people and 20 bodies had been brought to hospitals in Balkh and Samangan provinces. Rescuers were on the scene and the figures were changing, he added.

In the nearby province of Badakhshan, the quake damaged or destroyed 800 houses in one village in the Shahr-e-Bozorg district, said Ihsanullah Kamgar, spokesperson for the provincial police headquarters.

However, due to a lack of internet service in the remote area, there were still no accurate casualty figures, he added.

Yousaf Hammad, a spokesperson for the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority, said most of the injured suffered minor wounds and were discharged after treatment.

In the Afghan capital, Kabul, the Ministry of Defence announced that rescue and emergency teams had reached the quake-affected areas in Balkh and Samangan, which suffered the most damage, and were transporting the injured and assisting others.

The Defence Ministry said a rockslide briefly blocked a main mountain highway linking Kabul with Mazar-i-Sharif but the road was later reopened. It said some people who had been injured and trapped along the highway were transported to hospital.

Video shows damage to Afghanistan’s shrine of Mazar-i-Sharif, also known as The Blue Mosque, after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. Officials in the area say at least seven people have been killed and 150 injured.

At least eight people have died after an earthquake struck northern Afghanistan, say local authorities, with the toll expected to rise as rescue efforts continue.

Some 180 people have also been left injured, Samin Joyenda, a health department spokesman of a nearby province told the BBC.

The earthquake struck Mazar-e-Sharif, which is home to around 500,000 people, in the early hours of Monday, at around 01:00 local time (20:30 GMT).

It had a magnitude of 6.3 and a depth of 28km (17mi, according to the US Geological Survey, and was marked at an orange alert level, which indicates “significant casualties” are likely.

Haji Zaid, a Taliban spokesman in Balkh province – of which Mazar-e Sharif is the capital – wrote earlier on X that “many people are injured” in the Sholgara district, just south of Mazar-e- Sharif.

He said they had received “reports of minor injuries and superficial damages from all districts of the province”.

“Most of the injuries were caused by people falling from tall buildings,” he wrote.

Mazar-e Sharif is home to more than 500,000 people. Many of the city’s residents rushed to the streets when the quake struck, as they feared their houses would collapse, AFP reported.

The Taliban spokesman in Balkh also posted a video on X appearing to show debris strewn across the ground at the Blue Mosque, a local landmark in Mazar-e-Sharif.

The religious complex is believed to house the tomb of the first Shia Imam – a religious leader believed to hold divine knowledge. It’s now a site where pilgrims gather to pray and celebrate religious events.

Khalid Zadran, a Taliban spokesman for the police in Kabul, wrote on X that police teams were “closely monitoring the situation”.

Numerous fatalities were also reported in Samangan, a mountainous province near Mazar-e-Sharif, according to its spokesman.

The quake on Monday comes after a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan’s mountainous eastern region in late August, killing more than 1,000 people.

That earthquake was especially deadly as the rural houses in the region were typically made of mud and timber. Residents were trapped when their houses collapsed during the quake.

Afghanistan is very prone to earthquakes because of its location on top of a number of fault lines where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.