AFGHANISTAN was shaken by another huge earthquake early yesterday, just days after a series of deadly quakes killed at least 2,000 people and flattened whole villages.

The magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck about 17 miles outside Herat, the capital of the province of the same name, and was around six miles deep, according to the United States Geological Survey.

At least 80 people were injured and a landslide blocked the main Herat-Torghondi highway, Information Ministry spokesman Abdul Wahid Rayan said.

The quake also flattened all 700 homes in the village of Chahak, which was not touched by the tremors of previous days. 

No deaths were initially reported in Chahak because its residents have taken shelter in tents this week, fearing for their lives as tremors continue to rock Herat.

Some villagers said they had never experienced an earthquake before and wondered when the the ground would stop shaking.

Many said that they had no peace of mind inside their tents, fearing that the “ground will open and swallow us at any moment.”

The epicentre of Saturday’s devastating quake was about 25 miles north-west of the provincial capital. Several aftershocks have been strong, including another of magnitude 6.3 the same day.

Taliban officials said at least 2,000 had died across Herat as a result of the earlier quakes, but the figure is likely to rise further.

Apart from the rubble of fallen buildings and funerals for the victims, there is little left of the villages in the region’s dusty hills.

In Naib Rafi, which previously had about 2,500 residents, people said that almost no-one was still alive other than the men who were working outside when the quake struck. Survivors toiled all day with excavators to dig long trenches for mass burials.

On a barren field in the district of Zinda Jan, a bulldozer removed mounds of earth to clear space for a long row of graves.

“It is very difficult to find a family member from a destroyed house and a few minutes later to bury him or her in a nearby grave, again under the ground,” said Mir Agha, from the city of Herat, who had joined hundreds of volunteers to help the locals.

Nearly 2,000 houses in 20 villages were destroyed, the Taliban government has said. The area hit by the quakes has just one state-run hospital.

On Tuesday, United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Zinda Jan was the worst-affected area, with more than 1,300 people killed and nearly 500 still missing.