Another Powerful Quake Hits Afghanistan, Days After Deadly Temblors

October 12, 2023 Current News Articles

The New York Times

Reporting from Herat City, Afghanistan

Oct. 11, 2023

A magnitude-6.3 earthquake rocked Herat City, near the site of two devastating ones that killed more than 1,000 people last weekend.

A powerful earthquake struck Herat Province in Afghanistan near the border with Iran early Wednesday, several days after two major quakes in the same area killed more than 1,000 people.

The magnitude-6.3 temblor struck northwestern Afghanistan at 5:22 a.m. at a depth of about six miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was just outside Herat City, the provincial capital and one of the country’s cultural and economic hubs.

At least 120 people were injured in the quake on Wednesday and one was killed, according to Dr. Mohammad Asif Kabir, head of Herat Province’s

“When my body started shaking I realized it was another quake,” said Nadar, 52, who goes by one name and who had been sleeping in his yard. “Everyone sleeping outside was shouting and screaming.”

Inside the Arg Hotel, a team of New York Times journalists felt the walls shake violently and the building sway. Bright lights illuminating the hallway flickered and went dark as guests ran out of the building. When the shaking subsided, parts of the concrete walls had broken off, and pieces of the ceiling in some rooms had crashed to the floor.

“I thought that it was all over,” said Mr. Reza, 28. When he woke to the walls shaking, he sprinted from the house barefoot, through the yard and to the alley outside.

“I was so scared and shocked, now I feel dizzy and I’m just throwing up,” he added.

The Saturday quakes, both of which were also 6.3 magnitude, caused mud-brick homes in several districts to come crashing down. At least seven tremors followed.

There was optimism that the Wednesday quake would be less destructive. The buildings in Herat City are mostly made from concrete — not mud-brick, as in districts that saw the worst devastation on Saturday — and many people were sleeping outside.

But the historic city, which once served as a center of medieval Islamic culture, home to poets, scholars and painters, the ruins of ancient architecture did not survive the quake unscathed.

At the Musalla of Gawhar Shah, a 15th-century Islamic religious complex, the top of one of five minarets still standing was partially damaged by the quake, according to Farid Ahmad Ayoubi, the director of information for Herat Province. The Great Mosque of Herat, one of the oldest mosques in the region, widely considered a masterpiece of Islamic architecture and recognizable by its vibrant blue minarets, was also damaged, he said.

At Herat’s regional public hospital, ambulances raced in and out of the gate Wednesday morning carrying dozens of injured people.

Outside the intensive care unit, dozens of doctors and nurses stood at a makeshift triage station and swarmed the ambulances as each new wave of patients arrived. They bandaged bloodied arms and legs, rolled out IVs on rickety metal stands and tried to calm people crying with fear as their loved ones were treated.

One man in a dirt-covered orange salwar kameez, a traditional loosefitting garment, carried a young boy to the triage station and laid him down on the pavement. After the initial quake Saturday morning, they had come from Nawabad village, on the outskirts of Herat, in an Army Ranger vehicle.

As doctors inserted an IV into the boy, the man stood up in tears and let out a shriek.

“There’s nothing left!” he cried, before pleading with hospital staff members to let him check the morgue for other relatives who were still missing from the weekend disaster, which leveled homes in his village.

“Please,” he begged. “Just let me go and check the dead bodies.”

For many in Herat, the quake on Wednesday was a terrifying reminder of the unease that continues to plague the city after the initial quake last weekend.

Along the grassy median of a main road running through the city, dozens of people lay inside makeshift tents they had constructed with clothes, rugs and string. Many had slept there since Saturday, fearing the aftershocks that have rolled through the city.

Mohammadi Yasin, 22, set up his campsite with his siblings and other relatives on Saturday afternoon, heeding the advice of his neighbors, who warned about possible tremors after the initial quakes.

“It’s not the safest place, but it’s the only one that we could find,” Mr. Yasin said, his 11-month-old nephew asleep in the shade of a tree next to him. “We don’t have a yard, and we couldn’t stay in alleys outside our house — there were big buildings around it; we were afraid they would fall down,” he added.

His family had returned to their two-story home nearby on Tuesday night, thinking the crisis was finally over. Then, early Wednesday morning, they were jolted awake as the ground shook violently beneath them. His two sisters screamed in fear as they fled the house for the alleyway, their drinking glasses tumbling off the shelves of their kitchen and smashing onto the ground.

Now, he said, his family plans to stay on the median for at least a week.

“We are not feeling safe; the earthquakes are happening all around us,” he said. “It might happen again.”

Andrés R. Martínez contributed reporting.

Christina Goldbaum is the Afghanistan and Pakistan bureau chief for The Times. More about Christina Goldbaum

Pakistan Orders More Than a Million Afghans Out of the Country

October 9, 2023 Current News Articles

By Zia ur-Rehman and Christina Goldbaum

Zia ur-Rehman reported from Karachi, Pakistan, and Christina Goldbaum from London.

The New York Times

Oct. 8, 2023

Migrants from Afghanistan living illegally in Pakistan, many of whom fled the Taliban takeover, have been given four weeks to leave.

Hundreds of police officers flooded into a Karachi slum around midnight, surrounding the homes of Afghan migrants and pounding at their doors. Under the harsh glare of floodlights, the police told women to stand to one side of their homes and demanded the men present immigration papers proving they were living in Pakistan legally. Those without documents were lined up in the street, some shaking with fear for what was to come: Detention in a Pakistani prison and deportation to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The police raid on Friday in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, followed an abrupt decision by the Pakistani authorities last week to deport the more than one million Afghan migrants living illegally in the country.

“Police entered every house without warning,” said Abdul Bashar, an Afghan migrant whose two cousins were among the 51 people who the police said were arrested during the neighborhood sweep. “The fear has left us restless, making it difficult for us to sleep peacefully at night.”

On Tuesday, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry announced that migrants residing illegally in the country had 28 days to leave voluntarily, and it offered a “reward” for information leading to their arrests once that deadline passed.

Though Pakistani officials say the crackdown applies to all foreign citizens, the policy is largely believed to be targeting Afghans, who make up the vast majority of migrants in Pakistan.

While Afghans have faced harassment in Pakistan for decades, this announcement was the government’s most far-reaching and explicit action affecting Afghan migrants. It was widely seen as a sign of the increasing hostility between the Pakistani government and the Taliban authorities in neighboring Afghanistan as they clash over extremist groups operating across their borders.

Over the past year, Pakistan has experienced a surge in terrorist attacks, both by militant groups that have found haven in Afghanistan under the Taliban administration and by others whose fighters have been pushed into Pakistan following a brutal Taliban-led crackdown on their ranks. Some former Taliban fighters have also migrated to Pakistan to wage jihad against the Pakistani government.

For months, the Pakistani authorities have pleaded with the Taliban to rein in extremist violence stemming from Afghan soil. But Taliban officials have rebuffed those calls, instead offering to mediate talks between the Pakistani authorities and the militants.

The growing animosity between the two countries has threatened to further destabilize a region that is already a political tinderbox.

On the other is nuclear-armed Pakistan, which has struggled with military coups, volatile politics and waves of sectarian violence since its founding 75 years ago.

Caught in between are the roughly 1.7 million Afghans living in Pakistan illegally, according to Pakistani officials. Among them are around 600,000 people — including journalists, activists and former policemen, soldiers and former officials with the toppled U.S.-backed government — who fled after the Taliban seized power, according to United Nations estimates.

Many of those migrants face a stark choice: Either return to Afghanistan, where they fear persecution by the Taliban, or remain in Pakistan and face harassment from the Pakistani authorities.

“We have been left in the lurch,” said Mahmood Kochai, an Afghan journalist who fled to Pakistan with his wife and six children after the Taliban seized power.

Like many Afghan migrants in the capital, Islamabad, Mr. Kochai arrived in Pakistan on a temporary visa, anticipating an asylum decision from Western embassies in Islamabad. Soon after arriving, he applied for sanctuary in the United States under a refugee program for Afghans who worked with the U.S. government or U.S.-funded organizations.

But since he applied more than a year ago, he has not heard anything back, Mr. Kochai said. Now, he is concerned about the expiration of their Pakistani visas in two months.

In Karachi, home to a sizable population of Afghan migrants, news of migrants’ getting arrested at security checkpoints on roads and in markets during routine outings has stoked panic.

Ali, a former Afghan security official who would give only his first name because of his immigrant status in Pakistan, said he and his neighbors — also Afghan migrants — had barely gone outside for two weeks, fearing getting arrested and being sent back to Afghanistan. If he is deported, he worries he faces arrest — or worse — because of his affiliation with the U.S.-backed government.

The new policy has in fact drawn criticism from human rights groups, which say deporting Afghans could put them at risk in Afghanistan. Despite the Taliban’s policy of blanket amnesty for Afghans who worked with the U.S.-backed government, human rights monitors have documented hundreds of abuses against former government officials since the Taliban seized power.

Pakistani officials have defended the policy as necessary to protect Pakistan from extremist violence. In a news conference on Tuesday, the Pakistani caretaker government’s interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti, asserted that Afghans were involved in 14 of the 24 major terrorist attacks in Pakistan this year.

“There are attacks on us from Afghanistan, and Afghan nationals are involved in those attacks,” he said. Taliban officials denied those claims.

The aggressive approach echoes similar crackdowns on Afghan migrants in years past, observers say. After a string of major terrorist attacks in 2016, the Pakistani authorities began a sweeping campaign to uproot Afghan migrants, forcing around 600,000 back to Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch characterized Pakistan’s actions as the world’s “largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees” in recent times.

“Afghans always get stuck when foreign relations break down between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” said Sanaa Alimia, researcher and author of “Refugee Cities: How Afghans Changed Urban Pakistan.”

“That usually manifests itself as harassment of ordinary Afghans in the country and those getting harassed are usually in the lowest income groups, they are an easy target,” she added.

Pakistan has not signed the 1951 Geneva Convention and its 1967 protocol covering the status of refugees, which protects people seeking asylum. Instead, Pakistan’s Foreigners’ Act grants the authorities the right to apprehend, detain and expel foreigners — including refugees and asylum seekers — who lack valid documentation.

After previous crackdowns, many Afghans have either remained in Pakistan or returned after being deported — underlining the limit of the Pakistani government’s ability to repatriate Afghans, experts say.

Now, with the government facing dueling economic and political crises, it is unclear how the Pakistani authorities would repatriate such a large number of refugees, a deportation campaign requiring substantial personnel as well as military and intelligence resources.

Maulvi Abdul Jabbar Takhari, the Taliban’s consul general in Karachi, said that many Afghans who had been arrested possess legal documents allowing them to live in Pakistan and that Taliban officials had been trying to secure their release.

Mr. Takhari, who lived as a refugee in Karachi for several years, urged Pakistan’s government “to provide a specific time frame for undocumented refugees so that they can peacefully and respectfully wind up their businesses and return to their homeland.”

But for Afghan migrants, the wave of arrests has been a chilling reminder of their precarious status in Pakistan. Many arrived in the country decades ago, after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and after the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal.

Abdullah Bukhari, 51, came to Karachi in 1980 from Kunduz Province fleeing violence during the Soviet-Afghan war. The notion of uprooting his life in less than a month feels absurd and heartbreaking.

“How can they uproot everything in such a short period?” Mr. Bukhari asked. “We’ve spent our lives as refugees and amid conflict, but our biggest concern is for our children. They have never experienced Afghanistan even for a day.”

U.N. pledges $5M as Afghanistan earthquake death toll approaches 2,500

October 9, 2023 Current News Articles

By Clyde Hughes

Oct. 9 (UPI) — The United Nations pledged $5 million in emergency reserves in response to Afghanistan‘s recovery from Saturday’s devastating 6.3-magnitude earthquake.

The U.N.’s Humanitarian Coordinator approved the emergency reserve allocation from the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund, which will be processed within 24 hours with eligible partners able to utilize their grants effective Monday, officials said.

“The United Nations and our partners in Afghanistan are coordinating with the de facto authorities to swiftly assess needs and provide emergency assistance,” U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the death toll soared as search and rescue efforts continued.

Mullah Janan Saiq, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Ministry for Disaster Management, said the death toll rose to 2,445 people on Sunday but expected that number to soar as workers continued to dig through the rubble, much of it by hand.

“In total, 11,585 people (1,655 families) are assessed to have been affected” by the earthquakes the United Nations said Sunday evening, with “100% of homes estimated to have been completely destroyed” in 11 villages.

The epicenter of the earthquake was 25 miles west of Herat city, the third largest city in Afghanistan, making it one of the deadliest quakes that hit the country in years.

“The situation is worse than we imagined with people in devastated villages still desperately trying to rescue survivors from under the rubble with their bare hands,” said Thamindri de Silva, national director at the agency World Vision Afghanistan.

World Reacts to Herat Earthquake

October 9, 2023 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

TV Network

9 Oct 2023

The Qatari foreign ministry also in a statement expressed “its solidarity” with victims.

The earthquake in Herat that reportedly left over 2,400 people dead and over 2,000 others injured has sparked widespread reactions inside Afghanistan as well as abroad.

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake shocked Herat and its neighboring provinces on Saturday. This was followed by a series of aftershocks.

The US Secretary of State said on X that Washington is “carefully tracking the impact of the earthquake” and “our humanitarian partners are responding with urgent aid in support of the people of Afghanistan.”

The Qatari foreign ministry also in a statement expressed “its solidarity” with victims.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stresses that Qatar stands with the victims of the earthquake and is fully prepared to provide necessary assistance for the recovery from its effects,” the statement reads.

The foreign ministry of Saudi Arabia in a statement expressed “its deepest sympathy and sorrow for the victims of the earthquake.”

The office of the caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan said in a statement that the chairman of the NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority of Pakistan), Inam Haider Malik, on Sunday chaired a session which was attended by Pakistan’s ambassador in Afghanistan Ubaid Ur Rehman Nizamani, and representatives from Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs and other departments joined the session on the situation of earthquake in western Afghanistan.

“NDMA has arranged to dispatch relief items which include: food items, medications, tents and blankets,” the statement said. “In addition to these items, Search and Rescue Teams … are ready to be dispatched.”

The UAE’s ministry of foreign affairs also offered its “sincere condolences and solidarity with the Afghan people.”

Hissein Brahim Taha, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), on social media expressed his condolences. Taha affirmed that the OIC stands in full support of and in solidarity with Afghanistan and its people in this “trying moment.”

The deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, said that the Islamic Emirate will welcome any assistance of any country to the victims.

35 Aid Team Arrived in Herat to Help Earthquake-Affected People: Spokesman

October 9, 2023 Current News Articles

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9 Oct 2023

Taliban says 2,400 killed after earthquake ravages western Afghanistan

October 9, 2023 Current News Articles

By Rick Noack and Haq Nawaz Khan

The New York Times

Updated October 8, 2023 at 3:26 p.m. EDT

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — One day after powerful earthquakes struck western Afghanistan, government officials estimated Sunday that more than 2,400 people were killed and thousands injured.

“Many are still trapped,” said Janan Saiq, a spokesman for the Taliban-run Ministry of Disaster Management who announced the toll. Several villages have “completely perished,” Saiq said, as the full extent of one of the deadliest natural disasters in Afghanistan in decades became increasingly clear.

Hundreds of people were hospitalized in and around the city of Herat, the provincial capital close to the epicenter, said health official Muhammad Talib Shahid, pushing medical resources there to the brink of collapse. There still appeared to be limited international assistance 24 hours after the quake. The United Nations and nongovernmental organizations said ambulances were on their way and that aid workers had begun to distribute emergency tents, clothes and medicine.

But Siddig Ibrahim, a senior UNICEF official in the region, warned that medicine and supplies in the region’s main hospital were “expected to be depleted soon.”

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs provided a lower number of confirmed fatalities than the death toll announced by the Taliban, saying Sunday night that 1,023 people were reported to have been killed and more than 500 were missing.

The initial 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit the surroundings of Herat on Saturday morning, severely damaging or destroying almost 2,000 homes, according to the government. Local officials later reported powerful aftershocks.

Baz Muhammad Sarwari, a Herat resident, said he was on the second floor of a building in the earthquake zone when it started shaking. “I haven’t experienced such a powerful earthquake in my whole life,” he said.

While footage on social media on Saturday showed chaotic scenes in Herat, one of Afghanistan’s most populous cities, the damage was most severe to the west of the city, near the border with Iran. Most of the deaths were reported from villages about 25 miles from the city center, the United Nations and local officials said, where cellphone access continued to be disrupted Sunday.

Afhan officials said the epicenter was in two districts, Zinda Jan and Ghurian, where mud brick houses collapsed within seconds of the initial earthquake, leaving residents with no time to escape.

First responders compared the destruction to the damage caused by the quake that struck eastern Afghanistan last year, killing more than 1,000 people and raising questions at the time about the internationally isolated Taliban government’s ability to respond to major disasters quickly and effectively.

Taliban officials appeared intent Sunday on portraying themselves as in control of the situation. Abdul Ghani Baradar, a senior Taliban leader, said that authorities dispatched helicopters to the earthquake epicenter within half an hour, state-run broadcaster RTA reported.

At least 10 search teams were sent to the earthquake zone, disaster management official Saiq said. Government members in Kabul announced 100 million afghanis, the equivalent of $1.3 million, in emergency aid.

But in Herat, which is not among the most earthquake-prone Afghan cities, locals observed an improvised response. Farid Ahmad, a resident, said authorities had to block lanes in the city on Sunday to allow ambulances to reach hospitals.

Taliban officials appealed to businesses to supply food and rescue equipment, and could be seen loading donated shovels and other equipment into their vehicles as they prepared to head to the epicenter of the quake. Locals joining the search-and-rescue effort dug for survivors with their bare hands.

Among the first volunteers to arrive was 32-year-old Ghulam Mehboob, who rushed to one of the devastated villages within hours of the first earthquake, hoping to be able to rescue people trapped under the rubble.

After he and others dug out dozens of bodies but no survivors, Mehboob said he abandoned the effort on Sunday and returned to Herat.

Khan reported from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Profile: Naib Rafi in Zindajan Hardest Hit Village in Herat Earthquake

October 8, 2023 Current News Articles

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8 Oct 2023 – 8:59 PM

Afghan earthquakes kill 2,445, Taliban say, as deaths mount

October 8, 2023 Current News Articles

By Mohammad Yunus Yawar

Reuters

October 8, 2023 6:20 PM EDT

KABUL, Oct 8 (Reuters) – More than 2,400 people were killed in earthquakes in Afghanistan, the Taliban administration said on Sunday, in the deadliest tremors to rock the quake-prone mountainous country in years.

The Saturday quakes in the west of the country hit 35 km (20 miles) northwest of the city of Herat, with one of 6.3 magnitude, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

They were among the world’s deadliest quakes this year, after tremors in Turkey and Syria killed an estimated 50,000 in February.

Janan Sayeeq, spokesman for the Ministry of Disasters, said in a message to Reuters that the toll had risen to 2,445 dead, but he revised down the number of injured to “more than 2,000”. Earlier, he had said that 9,240 people had been injured.

Sayeeq also said 1,320 houses had been damaged or destroyed. The death toll spiked from 500 reported earlier on Sunday by the Red Crescent.

Ten rescue teams were in the area, which borders Iran, Sayeeq told a press conference.

More than 200 dead had been brought to various hospitals, said a Herat health department official who identified himself as Dr Danish, adding most of them were women and children.

Bodies had been “taken to several places – military bases, hospitals”, Danish said.

Beds were set up outside the main hospital in Herat to receive a flood of victims, photos on social media showed.

Food, drinking water, medicine, clothes and tents were urgently needed for rescue and relief, Suhail Shaheen, the head of the Taliban political office in Qatar, said in a message to the media.

The mediaeval minarets of Herat sustained some damage, photographs on social media showed, with cracks visible and tiles fallen off.

Hemmed in by mountains, Afghanistan has a history of strong earthquakes, many in the rugged Hindu Kush region bordering Pakistan.

Death tolls often rise when information comes in from more remote parts of a country where decades of war have left infrastructure in a shambles, and relief and rescue operations difficult to organise.

Afghanistan’s healthcare system, reliant almost entirely on foreign aid, has faced crippling cuts in the two years since the Taliban took over and much international assistance, which had formed the backbone of the economy, was halted.

Diplomats and aid officials say concerns over Taliban restrictions on women and competing global humanitarian crises are causing donors to pull back on financial support. The Islamist government has ordered most Afghan female aid staff not to work, although with exemptions in health and education.

In August, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was likely to end its financial support for 25 Afghan hospitals because of funding constraints. It was not immediately clear if the Herat hospital was on that list.

The quakes triggered panic in Herat, resident Naseema said.

“People left their houses, we all are on the streets,” she wrote in a text message to Reuters on Saturday, adding that the city was feeling aftershocks.

There are a total of 202 public health facilities in Herat province, one of which is the major regional hospital where 500 casualties had been taken, the World Health Organization (WHO)said in a report on Sunday.

A vast majority of the facilities are smaller basic health centres and logistical challenges were hindering operations, particularly in remote areas, the WHO said.

“While search and rescue operations remain ongoing, casualties in these areas have not yet been fully identified,” it said.

Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul; Additional reporting by Ariba Shahid and Gibran Peshimam in Karachi; Editing by William Mallard and Sanjeev Miglani

Entire Villages Razed as Death Toll Soars From Quakes in Afghanistan

October 8, 2023 Current News Articles

By Christina Goldbaum, Najim Rahim and Yaqoob Akbary

The New York Times

Oct. 8, 2023

Local officials reported 813 confirmed deaths, though the toll was expected to rise. Homes were reduced to rubble, and hospitals are overwhelmed.

The death toll from two major earthquakes in northwestern Afghanistan rose to at least 813 people on Sunday, according to the local authorities, making the dual shocks one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit the country in decades.

The two earthquakes, both 6.3 magnitude, hit Herat Province, along the country’s border with Iran, on Saturday, causing mud-brick homes in several districts to come crashing down and thousands of people in the province’s capital city to rush out of their houses and office buildings as the ground shook beneath them. At least seven tremors followed the initial quakes.

Two Earthquakes Near Herat

Two magnitude 6.3 earthquakes

50 mi.

50 km.

In the areas hit hardest, some villages were destroyed, with the number of casualties expected to rise as search-and-rescue efforts continued, according to Taliban officials and local volunteers. Earlier on Sunday, officials had announced that around 2,000 people had been killed, but they later clarified that that figure included deaths and injuries, according to the Ministry of Disaster Management.

Wakil Safi, 41, who was at home in the provincial capital, Herat City, on Saturday when the earthquakes struck, said he ran outside with his five children when the walls of his home began to tremble, but fell to the ground because of the intensity of the shaking.

“In my 41 years of life, I have never seen such a strong earthquake,” Mr. Safi said. On Saturday night, he and his wife and children — like thousands of others in Herat City — slept outside in frigid temperatures, a blustering wind chilling them to the bone, for fear of additional aftershocks that could bring their homes crashing down. Between the cold and two tremors in the night, they barely slept, Mr. Safi added.

Aid workers who arrived on Sunday in the remote, badly hit areas found scenes of devastation: Homes had been reduced to rubble, and, in some cases, entire families had been killed. Hospitals and clinics — already teetering on the brink of collapse because of shortfalls in funding — were overwhelmed with hundreds of injured people.

In one video circulating on social media, a survivor of the earthquake in a remote village, Wardakha, stood on a pile of rubble that used to be his home. He explained that he was the only surviving member of his family after the quake — all 14 of his relatives, including his 5-day-old child, had been killed when their home collapsed.

The earthquakes were the latest natural disaster to rattle Afghanistan, which has endured enormous floods, mudslides and earthquakes in recent years. In June 2022, a major earthquake struck southeastern Afghanistan and killed more 1,000 people, according to Taliban officials.

The twin shocks follow two other major quakes this year, in Turkey and Morocco, that killed tens of thousands of people combined.

The disasters have compounded the already dire humanitarian and economic crises that have engulfed Afghanistan since the Western-backed government collapsed two years ago, prompting millions of jobs to disappear practically overnight and the prices of basic goods to soar.

Today, nearly half of the country’s 39 million people face severe hunger, including about three million on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program.

Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, U.N. officials have said that Afghanistan represents the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. But two years into Taliban rule, aid money has begun to dry up as other crises have seized the world’s attention and the Taliban administration’s mounting restrictions on women have led to calls to cut off funding from the country entirely in response.

As the country heads into the frigid winter months, the suffering is expected to worsen as families are forced to choose between spending the little money they have on food or on firewood to keep their families warm.

The entrenched humanitarian crisis and series of natural disasters have tested the Taliban’s ability to coordinate vast and sustained aid efforts since seizing power in 2021.

After the earthquake on Saturday, Taliban officials said they had directed military and service organizations to prioritize rescue operations, transporting the injured, preparing homeless shelters and delivering food aid in the remote areas that were most affected. On Sunday, officials said that the country’s air force had made 32 flights transporting the wounded and that all relevant agencies were coordinating their response.

But the sudden and dire need for food, aid and shelter appeared to be overwhelming the government’s ability to respond.

“We sent tents, but the number of families was in the thousands, and we could only give tents to some families,” said Musa Ashari, the head of the Taliban’s disaster management department for Herat. “For example, 20 to 30 tents have been given to a hundred families. The rest of them don’t even have a tent to live in.”

At one school turned aid center on the outskirts of Herat City, hundreds of injured people from one of the worst-hit districts, Zinda Jan, lay on dusty blankets waiting for medical help to arrive on Sunday. Many were taken to Baba Ji High School on Saturday by volunteers who had dug them out of the piles of rubble that were once their homes.

Dazed and injured, they were taken to the school — which local leaders had designated as an aid distribution point — because hospitals and clinics were overwhelmed. But nearly 24 hours after they arrived, most had not received any water, medicine or food from government officials, according to a volunteer.

“The conditions are horrible,” said the volunteer, Jami, 44, who preferred to go by her last name for fear of retribution for speaking to the news media.

In many of the hardest-hit areas — mostly villages along mountainous dirt roads and where homes are little more than mud-brick single-story structures — volunteers said little, if any, government aid had arrived.

Qudos Khatibi, 37, a resident of Herat City, traveled to the Zinda Jan District on Sunday morning with other volunteers carrying local donations of water, food and other aid. The devastation, he said, was worse than they could have imagined.

In some villages once home to hundreds of people, there were only a few survivors. The bodies of dozens of children were covered in dust and sheet metal from the religious school they were attending when the quake struck. Village after village was reduced to rubble.

“The situation is very bad,” he said. “You could not tell the difference between a house and an alley.”

Safiullah Padshah contributed reporting.

Desperate people dig out dead and injured from quakes that killed over 2,000 in Afghanistan.

October 8, 2023 Current News Articles

BY RIAZAT BUTT

Associated Press

Updated 4:50 PM EDT, October 8, 2023

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Men dug through rubble with their bare hands and shovels in western Afghanistan Sunday in desperate attempts to pull victims from the wreckage left by powerful earthquakes that killed at least 2,000 people.

Entire villages were flattened, bodies were trapped under collapsed houses and locals waited for help without even shovels to dig people out.

Living and dead, victims were trapped under rubble, their faces grey with dust. A government spokesman said Sunday that hundreds were still trapped, more than 1,000 hurt and more than 1,300 homes destroyed.

“Most people were shocked … some couldn’t even talk. But there were others who couldn’t stop crying and shouting,” photographer Omid Haqjoo, who visited four villages Sunday, told The Associated Press by phone from Afghanistan’s fourth largest city, Herat.

Saturday’s magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit a densely populated area near Herat. It was followed by strong aftershocks.

A Taliban government spokesman on Sunday provided the toll that, if confirmed, would make it one of the deadliest earthquakes to strike the country in two decades.

An earthquake that hit eastern Afghanistan in June 2022, striking a rugged, mountainous region, wiped out stone and mud-brick homes and killed at least 1,000 people.

People in Herat freed a baby girl from a collapsed building after she was buried up to her neck in debris. A hand cradled the baby’s torso as rescuers eased the child out of the ground. Rescuers said it was the baby’s mother. It was not clear if the mother survived. The video was shared online and verified by The Associated Press.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake’s epicenter was about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Herat. It was followed by three very strong aftershocks, measuring magnitude 6.3, 5.9 and 5.5, as well as lesser shocks.

With much of the world wary of dealing directly with the Taliban government and focused on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Afghanistan hasn’t received an immediate global response. Almost 36 hours after the first earthquake hit Herat province, there have been no planes of aid flying in, no specialists.

Aid agencies and nongovernmental groups have appealed for the international community to come forward but only a handful of countries have publicly offered support, neighboring China and Pakistan among them.

The International Rescue Committee warned that the lack of rescue equipment could push up the death toll in western Afghanistan because trapped survivors cannot be freed.

“There’s not much disaster management capacity and what there is can’t cover people on the ground,” said Salma Ben Aissa, the committee’s country director for Afghanistan. “The numbers (of dead) are increasing hour by hour.”

People injured in the quake on Saturday can’t get the treatment they need because of poor medical infrastructure so they are losing their lives. A lack of food, shelter and clean water are increasing the health risks among communities.

Ben Aissa’s colleague, Jawed Niamati, said Herat city is empty. People are sleeping in the open air, on roadsides and in parks, because they fear more quakes. Temperatures drop to 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night, he said.

The world rushed in aid after an earthquake rocked Syria and Turkey this year, killing tens of thousands of people.

Abdul Wahid Rayan, a spokesman at the Ministry of Information and Culture, said Sunday that hundreds of civilians were buried under the debris in Herat, and he called for urgent help.

At least a dozen teams have been scrambled to help with rescue efforts, including from the military and nonprofit organizations like the Red Crescent.

The United Nations migration agency deployed four ambulances with doctors and psychosocial support counselors to the regional hospital. At least three mobile health teams were on their way to the Zenda Jan district, which is one of the worst-hit areas.

Doctors Without Borders set up five medical tents at Herat Regional Hospital to accommodate up to 80 patients. Authorities have treated more than 300 patients, according to the agency. UNICEF dispatched thousands of supplies, including winter clothes, blankets and tarpaulins as temperatures dropped.

Irfanullah Sharafzai, a spokesman for the Afghan Red Crescent Society, said seven teams were busy with rescue efforts while others were arriving from eight nearby provinces. They set up a temporary camp for the displaced, Sharafzai said.

Some aid groups, like the World Food Program, were already on the scene with essential items.

Later Sunday, people from surrounding villages brought equipment to support rescue efforts.

The first quake was the strongest, causing the most damage and casualties, photographer Haqjoo said, quoting survivors.

Save the Children said the scale of the damage was horrific. “The numbers affected by this tragedy are truly disturbing – and those numbers will rise as people are still trapped in the rubble of their homes in Herat,” said the aid group’s country director for Afghanistan, Arshad Malik. “This is a crisis on top of a crisis. Even before this disaster, children were suffering from a devastating lack of food.”

He called for an “urgent injection” of money from the international community.

Neighboring Pakistan said it was in contact with Afghan authorities to get an assessment of the urgent needs.

China’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Xing, said his government and the country’s charitable institutions were ready to provide all kinds of help. “We are in contact with Afghan government aid agencies to provide aid to the needy,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Afghan cricket star Rashid Khan is donating all his Cricket World Cup fees to help Herat’s earthquake survivors. “Soon, we will be launching a fundraising campaign to call upon those who can support the people in need,” he told his 1.9 million followers on X.

Japan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Takashi Okada, expressed his condolences on the social media platform X, saying he was “deeply grieved and saddened to learn the news of earthquake in Herat province.”

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.

By Clyde Hughes

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