On top of its war woes, Afghanistan and Pakistan have to deal with the aftermath of a deadly 7.5-magnitude earthquake that shook both countries, as well as parts of India, Monday afternoon. The death toll has already risen above 300.
"The number of dead in northwestern Pakistan has risen to 229, disaster management officials said, bringing the overall toll for Pakistan, Afghanistan and India to 306," CNN reported.
"Monday's magnitude-7.5 earthquake was similar to a magnitude-7.6 quake in nearby Kashmir that killed more than 70,000 in 2005," the news source said, adding that the previous quake's origin was shallow, hence the greater number of casualties. This year's quake happened 139 miles below the earth's surface - deep enough not to cause as much damage as the 2005 event.
"The epicenter of the earthquake, near the Afghan city of Jarm, is a rural and sparsely populated area," CNN added. "Many people in this region live in mud brick buildings prone to collapsing. The mountainous region and poor infrastructure make assessing the aftermath difficult."
"In one of the worst scenes in Afghanistan, at least 12 young students were killed at a girls' school packed with as many as 900 people in the northern province of Takhar," The New York Times reported. "Most of the victims were crushed to death in a panicked stampede to leave the building, a rented four-story house in the city of Taliqan."
The rumbling could be felt as far as New Delhi in India, as well as Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan.
"We could feel a fair bit of shaking," said Ravi Agrawal, CNN New Delhi bureau head. "We could see tables shaking a little bit; the TVs on the wall were shaking a little bit."
"The last earthquake that brought shakes as bad as that was the Nepal earthquake," he added.
In Kyrgyzstan, the tremor was aid to be not unusual for the region, as the Hindu Kush region is said to be seismically active. No damage had been recorded in the country.
The death toll is anticipated to increase as rescue efforts continue in the next few days.
"The United States and Iran were among countries that offered to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, which already depends heavily on foreign aid after decades of war that have wrecked its economy and infrastructure," Reuters noted. "In Afghanistan, international aid agencies working in northern areas reported that cell phone coverage in the affected areas remained down in the hours after the initial quake."
Monday's quake took place nearly exactly six months after a devastating tremor rocked Nepal on April 25 and resulted in the loss of 9,000 lives.
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