India's National Centre for Seismology (NCS) on Tuesday recorded five consecutive earthquakes of between 2.7 and 6.2 magnitude with epicentres in India and Nepal, where some material damage has been reported.
The third, the highest-magnitude quake struck at 14:51 local time (09:21 GMT) at a depth of five kilometres with its epicentre in western Nepal, according to the NCS.
Another tremor of 4.6 magnitude at a depth of ten kilometres was recorded half an hour earlier in the same location, while two others of 4.3 and 3.0 magnitude were recorded in the northern Indian states of Uttarakhand and Assam, respectively, the Indian agency reported.
The NCS also recorded another quake at 16:29 local time (10:59 GMT) of 4.7 magnitude at a depth of 10 kilometres in the western Afghan city of Fayzabad.
However, the US Geological Survey (USGS) reported only two near-simultaneous quakes of 4.9 and 5.7 magnitude with epicentres in the Nepalese town of Dipayal Silgadhi in western Nepal.
The tremors were felt in cities such as New Delhi and Kathmandu, and damage to some houses was reported in some Nepalese cities. The authorities have so far reported no fatalities.
Nepal and Afghanistan are among the countries most prone to natural disasters and have a very vulnerable population, mostly poor, and lack sufficient infrastructure to cope with floods or earthquakes.
According to the Asian Partnership for Preparedness (APP), an alliance created to coordinate emergency response among Asian countries, Kathmandu is the national capital at the highest risk of earthquakes among 21 megacities worldwide.
On 25 April 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, toppling multi-storey buildings in Kathmandu, and triggering landslides and avalanches in the mountains. Nearly 9,000 people were killed and more than 22,000 injured.
The disaster also left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and caused damage valued at around 6.47 billion euros. More than seven years after the earthquake, reconstruction work has not been completed, slowed in part by the effects of the pandemic.
Afghanistan also suffered one of the largest earthquake disasters in 1998 in the north of the country, when two earthquakes of magnitude 5.9 and 6 killed some 4,000 people in February. A few months later, at the end of May, another earthquake of magnitude 7 struck again, killing some 5,000 people.
