The deaths of the earthquakes of Afghanistan climb to 2,200, whole villages leveled

Hundreds of additional bodies were recovered in houses in mountain villages destroyed by a major earthquake in Afghanistan at the start of this week, taking stock of more than 2,200, a Taliban government spokesman.

The shallow earthquake, 6.0, struck the mountainous and distant part of the country late Sunday, leveling villages and trapping people under rubble. Most of the victims took place in the province of Kunar, where people generally live in wooden and mud bricks along the steep river valleys separated by high mountains.

According to an assessment published Thursday, some 98% of the province’s buildings were damaged or destroyed. Help agencies said they needed staff and supplies to take care of the survivors of the region.

Look | Why was the earthquake in Afghanistan so devastating?:

Why the Afghan earthquake was so deadly

More than 1,000 people have been killed and entire villages have wiped out in Afghanistan – all of an earthquake of magnitude. CBC’s seismologist Johanna Wagstaffe explains why this “moderate” earthquake has become catastrophic and how geology, building codes and distant villages have combined to make the disaster so fatal.

Muhammad Israel said the earthquake had sparked a landslide that buried his house, her cattle and his personal effects in Kunar. “All the rocks came down from the mountain,” he said. “I barely released my children from there … Earthquakes always occur. It is impossible to live there.”

Israel stayed in a United Nations medical camp in Nurgal, one of the most affected districts in Kunar.

“The situation is also bad for us here,” he said. “We have no shelters and live in an open sky.”

Current search and rescue

Previous estimates said 1,400 people had been killed. Taliban spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said on Thursday that the number of deaths updated was 2,205 and that research and rescue efforts were continuing.

“Tents have been set up for people, and delivery of first aid and emergency supplies is underway,” said Fitrat.

The rugged land hinders emergency efforts. Taliban authorities have deployed helicopters and airy army commandos to help the survivors. The humanitarian workers declared walking for hours to reach the villages cut by landslides and rock falls.

Late Thursday, a 5.6 -coarse earthquake shaken Jalalabad in the province of Nangarhar, which is south of the hardest province in Kunar, although there was no immediate report of victims or damage.

Funding discounts also have an impact on the response. The Norwegian refugee council said that it had less than 450 employees in Afghanistan, against 1,100 in 2023, the date of the last major earthquake in the country. The council was only a warehouse and no emergency stock.

“We will have to buy items once we have obtained funding, but it will take weeks potentially and people need it,” said Maisam Shafiey, communication and advisor to the council in Afghanistan. “We only have $ 100,000 available to support emergency response efforts. This leaves an immediate financing gap of $ 1.9 million.”

‘People suffer a lot’

Dr. Shamshair Khan, who attended the wounded at the United Nations camp in Nurgal, said that his own condition was deteriorated after seeing the suffering of others.

“Neither these drugs are sufficient nor these services,” he said. “These people need more drugs and tents. They need food and drinking water. These people are very suffering.”

Qatar Minister of State for International Cooperation, Maryam Bint Ali Bin Nasser Al-Misnad, arrived in Kabul on Wednesday to supervise the delivery of assistance to victims of earthquakes.

She is the first woman minister to visit Afghanistan on a humanitarian mission since the Taliban took power in 2021, and the first senior foreign official to travel there from the earthquake.

Help organizations describe the last disaster as a crisis in a crisis. Afghanistan was already struggling with drought, a weak economy and the recent return of some two million Afghans from neighboring countries.

Look | The Surviving Afghan earthquake “lost everything”:

“ I lost everything ”, says survivor of the Afghan earthquake

Decumbers and flattened houses remain in the villages in eastern Afghanistan after an earthquake of 6.0 coarse struck on Sunday, with a replica of 5.2 victims of the region on Tuesday. The survivors spoke of the heartbreaking test, a man recovering in a hospital in Jalalabad saying that five parents had been killed and that five others were injured when the earthquake destroyed their house.