Claim: Pakistan Air Force’s strikes in Afghanistan caused 5.0 seismic readings, similar to an earthquake.
Fact: It is unlikely for airstrikes to cause such seismic readings as only nuclear bombs have been known to get readings of this magnitude in the past.
On 15 October, a user on X (formerly Twitter) posted (archive): “#BREAKING: 25+ airstrikes by Pakistan’s Air Force in Afghanistan, seismic readings crossed 5.0 magnitude earthquake level.”
Clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan
Dozens of fighters were killed in overnight border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan on 12 October, Reuters quoted both sides as saying, and termed it “the most serious fighting between the neighbouring countries since the Taliban came to power in Kabul”.
According to officials, Afghan troops opened fire on Pakistani army posts along the North Western border on Saturday, 11 October, and seized several of the posts, The Guardian reported. The attacks came after the Taliban regime in Afghanistan accused Pakistan of carrying out airstrikes on the country’s sovereign territory, particularly in the capital of Kabul, earlier that week.
On 12 October, Pakistan responded with retaliatory airstrikes, gunfire, and ground raids targeting Afghan Taliban posts along the border. In a statement, the media wing of the Pakistan military reported that 23 soldiers were killed and 29 others wounded in the attacks, The Guardian’s report added. The statement further claimed that 200 “Taliban and affiliated terrorists” were killed in the retaliatory strikes and that several terrorist training camps had been dismantled.
On 15 October, Pakistan and Afghanistan reportedly continued to clash until agreeing to a temporary 48-hour ceasefire on the same day.
According to an AFP report, Afghan officials accused Pakistan of breaking the ceasefire by carrying out strikes inside Afghanistan on 17 October, which killed 10 people and injured 12 others.
Then on 19 October, both neighbours agreed to an immediate ceasefire after peace talks in Doha, Qatar, while further negotiations were scheduled to be held on 25 October in Istanbul, Turkey.
Although the border crossing between the two countries remains closed, it was only temporarily reopened for the repatriation of Afghan refugee families.
Geo News reported on 20 October that border crossings were likely to reopen. “The sources privy to the matter said that officials from both countries have agreed to reopen the border if no other dispute arises,” the report said.
Peace talks held in Istanbul between the two countries ended on 28 October without a resolution, Reuters reported.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted a keyword search but found no credible articles or evidence to support the claim that recent airstrikes by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had caused a 5.0 seismic reading in Afghanistan.
In fact, a 5.0 seismic reading from airstrikes is almost impossible to achieve as it would require an enormous amount of energy. One of the only explosions known to produce a seismic reading of this magnitude was the Tsar Bomba in 1961. Officially known as the ‘Soviet RDS-220’ and code-named ‘Vanya’, the Tsar Bomba was detonated by the Soviet Union on 30 October 1961 and remains one of the largest nuclear devices ever tested. Its yield was approximately 1,570 times greater than the combined yield of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two. This power was noted by the bomb’s seismic magnitude, which was between 5 and 5.25.
The only explosion known to produce a seismic reading exceeding Tsar Bomba’s was North Korea’s sixth nuclear test on 3 September 2017. This test generated a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and produced sound waves recorded by seismometers around the world.
Thus, given the amount of energy and power required to produce such a reading, it is unlikely the Pakistan Air Force’s aerial campaigns in Afghanistan could attain such a high seismic magnitude, especially when no atomic weapons were used.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim on X here, and on Facebook here and here.
Conclusion: Pakistan’s airstrikes in Afghanistan were not reported to cause any major seismic readings. A 5.0 seismic reading requires incredible force and was achieved in 1961 by a nuclear bomb 1,570 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two.
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