Afghanistan from Space

September 21, 2001

Afghanistan2

Provided by: NASA/GSFC, United Nations Cartography Section
Summary authors & editors: Martin Ruzek

Now at the center of global attention, Afghanistan is a sparsely vegetated rugged country of mountains and deserts torn by tectonic as well as political forces. The folded mountains of the Sulaiman Range to the south in bordering Pakistan offer graphic evidence of the enormous forces of continental collisions, while the Hindu Kush and Pamirs further to the north rise ever higher as the Indian Plate pushes northward. In May 1998, over 5000 Afghanis died as a result of the magnitude 6.9 Takhar earthquake in the northern part of the country. In February, 1998 as many as 4000 were killed by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake in the remote northern Rustaq district.

This cloud free MODIS composite is part of a larger MODIS mosaic of the Himalayas created by Marit Jentoft-Nilsen at NASA GSFC. The image has been scaled to nearly match the map.

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