M 5.3 in Afghanistan on 17 Jan 2022 11:40 UTC

Event summary

This earthquake can have a low humanitarian impact based on the magnitude and the affected population and their vulnerability.

GDACS ID EQ 1306314
Earthquake Magnitude: 5.3M
Glide number: EQ-2022-000008-AFG
Depth: 18.82 Km
Lat/Lon: 34.946 , 63.5797
Event Date: 17 Jan 2022 11:40 UTC
17 Jan 2022 16:10 Local
Exposed Population: Less than 100 people in MMI VI
950 thousand in 100km
Inserted at: 17 Jan 2022 13:46 UTC
INFORM Coping capacity:
7.5 (Afghanistan)
INFORM Coping capacity list: Afghanistan= 7.5; Turkmenistan= 6.1

GDACS Score

For more info on GDACS alert score click here.
  Earthquake
(Shakemap)		 GDACS score
NEIC 0.5 0.5
us7000gclu Scaled population (raster) 0  
  C1 shakemap -0.59  
  C2 shakemap 0.53  
  Country Vulnerability 0  
  INFORM_normalised 1.29  
Maximum expected impact using different data sources.
Virtual OSOCC
Meteo assessment
Satellite products
Analytical products
Afghanistan - Earthquake (ECHO 18 Jan 2022)Tue, 18 Jan 2022 12:16

  • An earthquake event of magnitude 5.3 (US Geological Survey) at a depth of 10 km occurred on 17 January at 16.10 in  Badghis province, close to the Turkmenistan border. The quake caused the death of 26 people, including five women and four children. According to media, up to 700 houses may have been damaged.  Rescuers arrived at the affected area. Some homes in Qala-e-Naw (the provincial capital) suffered cracks, without reports on major injuries of damage.
  • The  number of casualties is unconfirmed and may rise. The epicentre of the event was located about 40 km east of Qala-e-Naw, and 79 km north of Bala Murghab City. A foreshock of 4.9 M has been recorded in the area (on 17 January at 9.35 UTC).
  • For the next 24 hours, moderate to high precipitations are forecasted for Badghis Province, severe weather warnings are in effect.
Detailed event map. European Union, 2024. Map produced by EC-JRC.
The boundaries and the names shown on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the European Union.

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Estimated casualties (PAGER)

USGS estimates the number of casualties for each earthquake for the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) product.
The graph shows the current fatalities estimate.

Exposed population

Data, images, links, services and documents

For this events, GDACS has links to information from the following sources: EC-JRC (47), (3), NEIC (4), OCHA (1), INGV (1), USGS (5), WMO (1), INFORM (2),