By Agence France-Presse
Strong aftershocks to a powerful earthquake that killed more than 1,400 people over the weekend rattled eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, as survivors in remote, hard-hit villages prepared for another night without shelter.
Temporary shelters had not yet reached the Mazar Dara area of Kunar province, an AFP journalist said, with roads still blocked to the remote, mountainous region bordering Pakistan, where the worst of the earthquake was felt.
Nurgal District Official Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad told AFP, “There is no food… there is nothing, everything has been buried in the rubble.”
Residents, including elderly people and children were “in the open air,” with little to protect them from wet weather, he said, adding that “we still feel strong aftershocks.”
A 5.2-magnitude earthquake jolted the region near the epicenter of the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that hit late Sunday night—one of at least six aftershocks recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Kunar Disaster Management Spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP, “These aftershocks are constant, but they have not caused any casualties yet.”
The number of victims from Sunday’s earthquake has mounted steadily, with 1,411 people dead and 3,124 injured in Kunar alone, Chief Taliban Government Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest to hit the country in decades. Another dozen people were killed and hundreds injured in neighboring Nangarhar province.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with dwindling aid since the Taliban seized power in 2021, undermining its ability to respond to disasters.
The devastation could affect “hundreds of thousands,” said United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte.
Government Spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said, “Rescuers searched through the night and all day for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened in Kunar, where more than 5,400 houses were destroyed.”
The European Union said it was sending 130 tons of emergency supplies and providing one million euros ($1.2 million) to help the victims of the deadly quake.
The bloc has become one of the key aid donors to Afghanistan after the United States—previously the country’s largest aid provider—cut all but a slice of its assistance after President Donald Trump took office in January.
The aid cuts risk impeding the response to the earthquake, sector experts told AFP, in a country already facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises after decades of conflict.
“The scale of need far exceeds current resources,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said, noting that funding cuts had hit humanitarian air services, “limiting access to remote communities.”
IFRC said it had launched an emergency appeal for 25 million Swiss francs ($31 million) to help with the earthquake response and recovery, as various countries pledged to send support.
As Taliban military helicopters flew in food and continued to transport victims, residents buried their dead, including children, wrapping them in white shrouds and praying over their bodies before laying them to rest.
‘Find their families’
Sunday’s earthquake epicenter was about 27 kilometers (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the USGS, and just eight kilometers below the Earth’s surface.
Many of those living in the quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans forced back to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years, many coming through the Torkham border crossing in Nangarhar province.
Rahmatullah Khaksar, who heads the emergency ward at a hospital in Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s provincial capital, said they had received 600 injured since Sunday night.
“Most of the patients were trauma patients. They were hit on the head, back, abdomen and legs,” he told AFP, adding they had cleared a ward for unidentified patients “so they will stay there until they find their families.”
Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.
Western Herat province was devastated in October 2023 by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.
A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.
