DUSHANBE, June 12, 2012, Asia-Plus — Two earthquakes rocked Afghanistan Monday, killing as many as 100 people and causing a landslide that destroyed 20 houses.
“We need bulldozers or other machinery to remove all this earth and get the bodies out, or the survivors if there are any,” Jawed Basharat, a spokesman for the police chief of Baghlan province in northeast Afghanistan, told the Associated Press.
Two women were rescued in the aftermath of the Afghan quake, Abdul Majid, the province”s governor, told the AP.
A 5.4-magnitude earthquake shook the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan early Monday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That was followed 25 minutes later by a 5.7-magnitude temblor in the same area.
The earthquakes were felt as far away as the Afghan capital of Kabul, nearly 150 miles from the epicenter of the temblors.
Up to 100 people are feared dead from the disaster, which resulted in a landslide that destroyed between 25 and 30 houses, the AP reported.
A school was among the buildings that collapsed following the landslide, the Bangkok Post reported.
The United Nations said it would assist local Afghan officials with rescue efforts.
The landslide occurred in the Burka district of Baghlan province, described by the AP as a “remote collection of mountain villages.”
The landslide was so devastating that rescuers gave up on digging through the buildings, Basharat told the AP.
The area of Afghanistan rocked by the earthquakes is prone to such disasters, according to the Bangkok Post, since the region is situated near the point where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet.
