A 5.3 magnitude earthquake jolted Islamabad and multiple areas across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Peshawar, on Wednesday morning, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department’s Seismological Centre.
The tremors, which struck at 10:13 am, were also felt in nearby regions like Mohmand, Shabqadar, Attock, Malakand, Swat, Shangla, Buner, and Abbottabad.
The quake originated at a depth of 220 kilometers, with its epicenter located in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush region—an area prone to seismic activity due to tectonic plate boundaries. This latest tremor follows a pattern of recent quakes in the region, highlighting the ongoing seismic activity in the Hindu Kush area.
Two months earlier, on September 11, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake shook Islamabad and parts of Punjab and KP, while a 5.4 magnitude quake was recorded in June in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and KP.
This year alone, Pakistan has experienced at least six earthquakes, three of which struck the coastal city of Karachi. The country, positioned at the meeting point of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, remains vulnerable to frequent seismic events as the Indian plate continues to press northward into the Eurasian plate, making large parts of South Asia particularly seismically active.