KEY POINTS
- Death toll from Afghanistan’s earthquakes climbs to 2,217.
- Survivors face acute shortages of food, shelter and medicines as aid agencies warn of dwindling funds.
- The UN says up to 84,000 people are affected, with entire villages in Kunar province wiped out.
- Pakistan has sent 105 tonnes of humanitarian aid.
KABUL, Afghanistan: The death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan at the weekend rose sharply to more than 2,200 on Thursday, according to a new toll, making it the deadliest in decades to hit the country.
Rescue workers battled to pull bodies from the rubble of homes destroyed in the earthquake, as survivors face a bleak future with global aid agencies warning of dwindling resources for food, shelter, and medicines.
The vast majority of those killed in the magnitude-6.0 earthquake that jolted the mountainous region bordering Pakistan late Sunday were in Kunar province, where 2,205 people died and 3,640 were injured, according to a Taliban government toll.
Another 12 people were killed and hundreds were injured in the neighbouring provinces of Nangarhar and Laghman.
The toll had been expected to rise as volunteers and rescuers were still pulling bodies from the rubble.
“Hundreds of bodies have been recovered from destroyed houses during search and rescue operations,” deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat wrote on X on Thursday, announcing the new toll, adding that “rescue efforts are still ongoing”.
The first earthquake of magnitude 6.0, one of Afghanistan’s deadliest in recent years, caused widespread damage and destruction in the provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar on Sunday, when it struck at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres.
A second quake of magnitude 5.5 on Tuesday caused panic and interrupted rescue efforts as it sent rocks sliding down mountains and cut off roads to villages in remote areas.
The United Nations has also warned the toll could rise with people still trapped under rubble as time runs out for survivors.
Limited access to the hardest hit areas of mountainous Kunar province has delayed rescue and relief efforts, with rockfalls from repeated aftershocks obstructing already precarious roads etched onto the side of cliffs.
Various countries have flown in aid, but hundreds of villagers in the hard-hit Nurgal district were still stranded in the open air, squeezing multiple families under pieces of tarp pulled from the rubble and unsure of where they would get a morsel to eat.
Desperate search
Humanitarian needs are “vast and growing rapidly”, said aid group the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
“Up to 84,000 people are directly and indirectly affected, with thousands displaced,” it added, citing initial figures.
Entire households were wiped out in some villages in Kunar province, according to Reuters news agency.
Survivors desperately searching for family members sifted rubble, carried bodies on woven stretchers and dug graves with pickaxes in the wait for aid to arrive.
Authorities also airdropped dozens of commando forces at sites where helicopters could not land.
Resources for rescue and relief work are tight in the South Asian nation of 42 million people, pulverised by war, poverty and shrinking aid, where harsh weather presents a further challenge.
US President Donald Trump’s funding cuts to foreign aid and donor frustration over the Taliban’s restrictive policies towards women and its curbs on aid workers have worsened Afghanistan’s isolation.
The World Health Organisation pointed to a funding gap of $3 million, saying it was critical to keep medicines, trauma kits, and essential commodities flowing amid rising demand.
The UN World Food Programme has funding and stocks to support the survivors for just four more weeks, its country head, John Aylieff, told Reuters on Wednesday.
Jacopo Caridi, his counterpart at the Norwegian Refugee Council, called for donors to step up for the long haul, going beyond life-saving relief to ensure Afghans a chance at a future beyond perpetual emergency.
“The earthquake should serve as a stark reminder: Afghanistan cannot be left to face one crisis after another alone,” he added.
Aid supplies
On Wednesday, Pakistan dispatched 105 tonnes of humanitarian aid for quake-hit Afghanistan.
The consignment included essential food items, medicines, tents, blankets, and bubble mats, aimed at supporting those affected by the recent earthquakes in the country.
Afghan authorities on Wednesday airdropped special forces into quake-hit mountain villages to pull survivors from rubble.
Afghanistan sits on the Hindu Kush fault line, where the Indian and Eurasian plates meet. With limited international recognition of the Taliban government, aid efforts remain underfunded. The UN says its $2.4bn appeal for 2025 is only 28 percent covered. – Agencies
