A fresh 5.2-magnitude earthquake has hit the east of Afghanistan, jolting a region still struggling with the aftermath of a powerful quake at the weekend that killed more than 1,400 people.
The epicentre of Tuesday’s tremor was close to where a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit late Sunday night, devastating remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan.
The "quake was felt in the same areas which were affected in Kunar (province) in the first earthquake," Ehsanullah Ehsan, the disaster management spokesperson in the hard-hit province, said.
"These aftershocks are constant, but they have not caused any casualties yet." The quake was reported by the US Geological Survey late on Tuesday.
The death toll from the devastating earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan on Sunday night has climbed to 1,411, an interim government spokesman said.
Separately, Afghan Red Crescent posted to X on Tuesday that at least 3,251 people have been injured, while the quake destroyed over 8,000 houses.
It is the third major earthquake to have hit a war-torn nation since 2021.
The US Geological Survey recorded the quake at 11.47 pm local time (1917 GMT), located 27 kilometres (16.7 miles) east-northeast of Jalalabad at a depth of 8 km (5 mi) on Sunday night, when most of the residents were asleep.
Kunar is the hardest-hit province, where the earthquake destroyed several villages.
Abdul Ghani, the spokesman for the interim Afghan administration in Kunar province, said rescue and relief teams were already arrived in the affected areas, and that the rescue and relief operation was underway.
"The death toll may rise as many people are still under the rubble," he said.
He added that dozens of houses were destroyed in the Nur Gal, Sawki, Watpur, Manogi and Chapa Dara districts of the province.
The Afghan interim administration dispatched relief goods and medical teams in the area on Monday, Ghani said, adding that more aid was on the way from Kabul.
Several nations, including neighbouring Pakistan, Iran, China and India, as well as Western nations, have pledged to send aid to Afghanistan.
A United Nations official said on Tuesday that blocked road access to people hit by the quake has been the biggest challenge for response teams and rescue efforts in the impacted mountainous regions are relying on helicopters.
"There's been lots of landslides and rock falls, and access has been very limited to everybody in the first 24 hours," Indrika Ratwatte, the United Nations' humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, said in a press briefing, speaking from Kabul.
"The biggest challenge is to reach these remote areas with the road access extremely damaged," he added.
