Ayaz Gul
VOA News
October 9, 2023

ISLAMABAD — The Taliban government and aid groups in western Afghanistan said Monday that rescue efforts were ongoing to find and recover survivors trapped under rubble, two days after a powerful earthquake and multiple aftershocks killed hundreds of people and injured many more.

The 6.3 magnitude quake hit the western province of Herat on Saturday, destroying more than a dozen villages in and around the hardest-hit remote Zinda Jan district.

Officials and witnesses said the disaster zone was twice shaken by fresh tremors Monday, rattling the provincial capital, also called Herat, and sending thousands of its residents into the streets. No losses were reported immediately.

While the Taliban government has reported at least 2,000 deaths since the calamity on Saturday, the United Nations confirmed more than 1,000 fatalities, saying nearly 1,700 injured were injured. More than 1,300 homes have reportedly been destroyed or partially damaged.

Siddiq Ibrahim, the UNICEF’s field officer for western Afghanistan, told VOA by phone from Herat that the casualties were expected to increase, saying volunteers and residents from surrounding areas were assisting Taliban teams in the rescue efforts.

“They are using very basic tools to dig up and try to see if there are any survivors or bodies underneath the rubble,” Ibrahim said after visiting some of the affected villages. “I was shocked to see that these villages have been completely wiped to the ground. There is absolutely nothing standing,” Ibrahim said.

“When the first earthquake hit, people thought it was a missile or a bomb, and they ran into their homes. Unfortunately, the quake continued, and houses started collapsing,” he said, explaining the reasons for the high number of casualties.

Ibrahim said UNICEF and partner agencies had set up tents to provide emergency medical aid to the area communities, and efforts were also under way to establish temporary schools to enable children to resume their education as soon as normalcy returns to the area.

The earthquake struck the country on the day renewed hostilities broke out in the Middle East, effectively diverting global attention from the crisis in Afghanistan.

“We need the world to keep working with us, supporting us. There are so many issues in the world, but we also need to keep giving equal attention to the children of Afghanistan who are in desperate need of aid,” Ibrahim said.

Afghanistan, an impoverished country of about 40 million people, mainly relies on foreign aid to run its economy, health care, and social services. Donor nations have cut most of the financial assistance since the hardline Taliban seized power two years ago.

The U.N. humanitarian office has announced $5 million worth of assistance for the quake response. The Taliban have urged foreign nations and international aid agencies to help in rehabilitating quake victims.

Neighboring Pakistan, Iran, and China’s Red Cross Society immediately extended cash and material aid for Afghan earthquake victims. The Taliban said Monday that a Saudi charity had provided $2 million dollars’ worth of humanitarian food and other material through the Afghan Red Crescent Society.

Monday, the head of the U.S. diplomatic mission to Afghanistan, which operates out of Qatar, applauded the U.N. 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.

The Taliban have banned humanitarian groups from employing Afghan female staff and ordered many women government employees to stay home since taking control of the country. Aid agencies say restricting women employees has hampered their humanitarian activities in the deeply conservative society.

Teenage girls are forbidden from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade across Afghanistan, prompting the world to isolate the Taliban and refuse to recognize their government.

By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
October 9, 2023

Aid workers have reached some earthquake-stricken areas of western Afghanistan and started distributing emergency food supplies to those affected as rescue efforts continued after a series of powerful earthquakes caused widespread destruction and reportedly killed more than 2,000 people in the quake-prone mountainous country’s worst natural disaster in years.

Wahid Amani, a spokesman for the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) has told RFE/RL that emergency aid has been delivered to several hundred people in Herat Province so far.

“We are prepared to deliver emergency food aid to some 20,000 people” Amani said, adding that the UN food agency was ready to increase that number to 70,000 people.

In addition to the WFP, teams from the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) have rushed to the areas of Herat worst affected by the temblors. WHO employees are already in the field helping with the efforts to rescue and treat people still under the rubble, the Afghan branch of the WHO told RFE/RL.

The WHO has put the number of those affected to more than 11,000 people.

Alaa Abouzeid, the head of the WHO’s emergency response in Afghanistan, said women and children make up about two-thirds of those hospitalized.

“Two-thirds of those with severe injuries who are admitted in the hospital I saw yesterday [in Herat] are children and women,” Abouzeid told Reuters.

Volunteers have transported truckloads of food, tents, and blankets to the worst-stricken areas some 30 kilometers northwest of Herat city, capital of the same-named province.

The rugged area is difficult to reach, and local officials have given conflicting casualty tolls from the earthquake.

On October 8, a member of the Taliban-led government said the updated death toll had surpassed 2,000.

Mullah Janan Sayeeq, a spokesman for the Ministry of Disasters, told a news conference that 2,440 people were dead, about 10,000 were injured, and that more than 2,000 houses had been damaged or destroyed.

Afghanistan’s disaster agency said on October 8 that 2,053 people had been killed.

Neither estimate could not be independently confirmed.

The epicenter of the first earthquake was some 40 kilometers northwest of Herat, which has some 700,000 people in the city and the surrounding area. It was followed by at least three major aftershocks.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded the largest of the temblors at a magnitude of 6.3, with the latest aftershock coming about 30 kilometers northeast of the city of Zindah Jan, which has a population of about 70,000 people.

“This earthquake was preceded by a 6.3 earthquake that occurred approximately 30 minutes before,” the USGS said.

Disaster authority spokesperson Mohammad Abdullah Jan said four villages in the Zindah Jan district in Herat Province bore the brunt of the quake and aftershocks.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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