A major earthquake has hit Afghanistan, killing 1,000 people and wounding at least 1,500, authorities have announced.

On Wednesday, the 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck southeast of Khost, the capital city of the country’s Khost Province, near its shared border with neighboring Pakistan. TheUnited States Geological Surveyreports the quake had a depth of six miles.

Bakhtar News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

This photograph taken on June 22, 2022 and received as a courtesy of the Afghan government-run Bakhtar News Agency shows collapsed mud houses following an earthquake in Gayan district, Paktika province

The United Nations secretary general’s deputy special representative for Afghanistan, Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, wrote onTwitterthat the U.N. and its office for humanitarian affairs in the country are “assessing the needs and responding in the aftermath of the earthquake last night which has taken hundreds of lives.”

This photograph taken on June 22, 2022 and received as a courtesy of the Afghan government-run Bakhtar News Agency shows soldiers and Afghan Red Crescent Society officials near a helicopter at an earthquake hit area in Afghanistan’s Gayan district

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“Our condolences to the families of [the] deceased,” Alakbarov continued. “Response is on its way.”

The earthquake comes less than a year after theTaliban took control of Afghanistanas theU.S. military left the countryin August 2021; 20 million Afghans are currently experiencing acute hunger, according toCNN, which cited a U.N. report from May.

source: people.com