Magnitude 6.5 earthquake rattles Pakistan and Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan â€”  A magnitude 6.5 earthquake rattled much of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Tuesday, sending panicked residents fleeing from their homes and frightening people even in remote villages.

Twelve people were injured in northwest Pakistan in the quake, which was centered in Afghanistan and also felt in bordering Tajikistan.

The tremors were so powerful that many people rushed outside their homes and offices in Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad, some reciting verses from the Quran, Islam’s holy book.

The scene was repeated in Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan.

“The quake was so strong and terrifying, we thought houses are collapsing on us, people were all shouting and were shocked,� said Shafiullah Azimi, a Kabul resident.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the center of the magnitude 6.5 quake was located 25 miles south-southeast of Jurm in Afghanistan’s mountainous Hindu Kush region, bordering Pakistan and Tajikistan.

Rakhshinda Tauseed, a physician, said she was at her hospital in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore when the earthquake hit. “I quickly asked patients to go move to a safer place,� she said.

Khurram Shahzad, a resident in Pakistan’s garrison city of Rawalpindi, said he was having dinner with his family at a restaurant when the walls started swaying.

“I quickly thought that it is a big one, and we left the restaurant and came out,� he told The Associated Press by phone. He said he saw hundreds of people standing on the streets.

The situation was similar in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on the border with Afghanistan, where people were seen standing outside their homes and offices.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in a statement said he asked disaster management officials to remain vigilant to handle any situation.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the main spokesperson for the Taliban government in Afghanistan, tweeted that the Ministry of Public Health had ordered all health centers to be on standby.

The region is prone to violent seismic upheavals. A magnitude 7.6 quake in 2005 killed thousands of people in Pakistan and Kashmir.

Last year in southeastern Afghanistan, a 6.1 magnitude quake struck a rugged, mountainous region, flattening stone and mud-brick homes. Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers put the total death toll from the quake at 1,150, with hundreds more injured, while the U.N. offered a lower estimate of 770.

Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez, Riaz Khan and Abdul Sattar contributed from Islamabad, Peshawar, and Quetta, Pakistan, respectively.