A 5.2-magnitude earthquake on Tuesday jolted Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and several parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Seismic Network of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) said in a statement.
According to the statement, the quake was felt in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, KP’s Peshawar, Swat, Chitral, and Abbottabad.
The PMD’s press release said that the earthquake originated at 10:20am PKT. Its epicentre was the Hindu Kush region in Afghanistan, at a depth of 190 kilometres.
Punjab’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority reported that the earthquake was also felt in the province’s divisions of Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Lahore, Multan, Sahiwal and Sargodha.
No casualties have been reported so far, and according to KP’s Rescue 1122 spokesperson Bilal Faizi, an emergency has not yet been declared.
Pakistan falls on three major tectonic plates — the Arabian, Euro-Asian and Indian — which create five seismic zones under the country. The intersection of multiple fault lines means that tectonic movements remain a frequent occurrence in the region.
The Hindu Kush region is recognised as one of the most active seismic zones in the world, lying at the junction of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates where their ongoing collision generates frequent earthquakes, including rare deep-focus events that can reach depths of over 200km, according to the US Geological Survey.
This seismicity is attributed to subduction-related processes and slab break-off beneath the Hindu Kush–Pamir region, making it part of the broader Himalayan seismic belt that has produced several destructive earthquakes across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India.
A 5.1 magnitude earthquake shook Islamabad, Rawalpindi and surrounding regions earlier in the month, swaying buildings and causing panic, but there were no reports of damage or casualties.
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