The historic Blue Mosque of Mazar-e-Sharif was damaged in the , officials confirmed on Monday.
In a video from Afghan online news outlet TOLOnews showed debris on the ground around the building, although the main structure remained standing.
The powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck just before dawn on Monday.
The Taliban government’s Culture Ministry pledged to immediately take “the necessary measures to assess and repair the damage.”
The current blue tiled mosque and shrine of Mazar-e-Sharif, a city of 523,000, dates back to the 15th century and the site is venerated by Muslims.
Originally, a shrine was built on the site in the 12th century, as it was believed to be the resting place of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad.
That original shrine was destroyed by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century.
Second earthquake in less than 6 months
The earthquake struck the northern part of the country at just before 1 a.m. local time Monday (8:30 p.m. GMT) some 22 kilometers from Kholm, near Mazar-i-Sharif in Balk Province, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
At least 20 people were killed and more than 600 were injured, according to authorities.
Ihsanullah Kamgar, spokesperson for the police headquarters for the nearby province of Badakhshan, said the quake also affected that area.
Kamgar said some 800 houses in one village in the Shahr-e-Bozorg district, had been partially or completely destroyed
He added that in the remote area meant still no accurate casualty figures could be reported.
Humanitarian group save the children said it was dispatching a team to Samangan Province.
“As temperatures fall, thousands of children in the earthquake-devastated east of the country are facing the winter with only tents for protection from the rain and snow,” said Samira Sayed Rahman, Save the Children’s program development and advocacy director in Afghanistan.
The quake in northern comes just three months after the mountain nation had already , which hit the eastern part of the country, and leaving hundreds of homes destroyed.
Edited by: Zac Crellin
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