Desperate rescuers have been digging through rubble by hand, trying to find survivors of Saturday’s earthquake in Afghanistan, but the outlook is grim. Already, more bodies are being pulled from collapsed buildings than survivors, CBS reports.
What happened
By all accounts, the day began as any other day in the Zenda Jan district in western Afghanistan. Village men headed to their sheds and fields, while village women worked in their mud brick homes, with their children playing nearby. Hours later, around 11 a.m. local time, entire villages were flattened in seconds by a 6.3 earthquake no one expected.
This region of Afghanistan is not earthquake-prone, at least not compared to other areas of the country. Reshma Azmi, an aid worker with CARE Afghanistan, said “nobody was prepared.” Another volunteer, Abdulhay, was among the first to arrive at the epicenter, reports The Washington Post. He said that the victims he pulled out of the rubble had died within inches of their doors.
The first reports of this weekend’s earthquake had focused on “toppled cans in supermarkets and cracks in high-rises in the nearby provincial capital of Herat.” It took hours for local authorities and rescuers to realize that the worst damage and loss of life had occurred (and will continue to occur) in the surrounding remote and hard-to-reach areas.
The area is one where communities are made up of people displaced by war and drought, making it difficult for de facto government officials to know how many people lived — and died — there, reports the BBC.
International aid
On Monday, several aftershocks, including one that measured 5.1, continued to hit the region, hampering efforts to find survivors.
The Taliban said on Monday that a Saudi charity had provided $2 million worth of humanitarian food and other material through the Afghan Red Crescent Society.
The head of the U.S. diplomatic mission to Afghanistan, which operates out of Qatar, applauded the United Nations for approving the funds to support emergency relief efforts.
“My heart goes out to the Afghan people following the earthquakes in Herat province on Saturday and today. U.S. partners have already started to distribute hygiene kits, food, safe drinking water, and medical supplies to affected families in Afghanistan,” charge d’affaires Karen Decker said on X, formerly Twitter.
In a statement Monday, Amnesty International urged Taliban authorities to guarantee safe and unrestricted access to the quake-hit regions for humanitarian agencies.
“People in Afghanistan are already suffering from the impacts of the acute economic crisis and several years of conflict,” said Zaman Sultani, the global watchdog’s regional researcher for South Asia.
“With the winter months ahead, Amnesty International calls on the de facto authorities and the international community to immediately mobilize resources to support access to housing, adequate food, potable water, safe sanitation, and health care as thousands of families face an uncertain future with their homes destroyed by the earthquake,” Sultani said.
Afghanistan’s health care system has been decimated since the Taliban took over two years ago and the de facto government placed bans on Afghan women for the United Nations and other international nongovernmental organizations.
The earthquake also damaged infrastructure in the area, including bridges, making the arrival of assistance even more difficult.
Holly Richardson is the editor of Utah Policy.