Afghan residents clear debris of damaged houses after earthquake in Nayeb Rafi village, Zendeh Jan district of Herat province on October 10, 2023. Rescue workers scrabbled through rubble on October 10, for villagers buried in their homes by a series of earthquakes that killed more than 2,000 people in rural western Afghanistan, but hope of finding survivors was fading fast. Photo: Mohsen KARIMI / AFP
By Derek Cai & Mahfouz Zubaide, BBC News
Another earthquake has hit western Afghanistan just days after two large quakes in the same region killed more than 1000 people.
The new 6.3 magnitude quake struck at around 5.10am local time on Wednesday, 28 kilometres north of the city of Herat.
More than 100 were injured and sent to hospital, health officials said.
The wider impact is not yet clear, but many were sleeping in the open after their homes were destroyed on Saturday.
Aid agencies have said there is also a shortage of blankets, food and other supplies.
An eyewitness in central Herat, where some houses still stand, said she woke up screaming and ran out of her home.
"I was in the deepest sleep because I hadn't slept in the days before," she told the BBC.
"I have never felt so close to death," she said, adding that she ran barefoot to the outskirts of the city, where many have been sleeping in tents since the first quake.
Saturday morning's earthquake hit Zindajan, a rural district some 40km from Herat.
Images from the villages show entire houses, which were too fragile to withstand the tremors, reduced to rubble.
Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes - especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range as it lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
This story was first published by the BBC.
