June 11, 2012 Earthquake: Hindu Kush, Afghanistan

At least 75 people killed, 13 injured, 114 buildings destroyed and 593 damaged after landslides occurred in Baghlan. At least 19 buildings destroyed or damaged in Takhar. Felt (V) at Kunduz; (III) at Bagrami, Charikar, Jabal us Saraj, Kabul and Bazar-e Sharif; (II) at Jalalabad. Also felt at Abbottabad and Islamabad, Pakistan and at Dushanbe, Tajikistan. (reference #1053)

KABUL, Afghanistan - As many as 100 people are feared dead in an earthquake and landslide that buried more than 20 houses in northern Afghanistan on Monday, officials said.

... A massive landslide of mud and rocks buried houses so deep in the remote mountain village of Sayi Hazara that rescuers gave up trying to use shovels to dig through the buried buildings, said Jawed Basharat, a spokesman for the provincial police chief who was part of a team that examined the village after the slide. There were no visible signs of the buildings underneath... They knew how many houses were buried only from information provided by area residents, who said between 25 and 30 houses disappeared in the landslide. An earthquake measuring a magnitude 5.4 struck the Hindu Kush region Monday morning, followed by a 5.7 quake, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Both were felt as far away as the Afghan capital, Kabul, where buildings shook. Baghlan province's Burka district, the site of the landslide, is a remote collection of mountain villages. It takes more than two hours to drive the approximately 25 miles from the provincial capital of Pul-e-Khumri to the area. (reference #9904)

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan officials say they are halting efforts to dig out more than 60 bodies from the site of a devastating landslide that followed earthquakes in northern Afghanistan earlier this week. They plan to make the area a memorial to the dead. The government has said 71 people were buried in Monday's landslide, but the police chief of Baghlan province's Burka district says they have pulled out only five bodies in four days of digging. (reference #9905)