Over 800 killed in Afghanistan earthquake

A massive rescue operation was underway in Afghanistan on Monday, after a strong earthquake and multiple aftershocks collapsed homes onto sleeping families in a remote, mountainous region, killing more than 800 people, according to the Taliban authorities.

The 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck just before midnight, rattling buildings from Kabul to neighbouring Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.

More than 1.2 million people likely felt strong or very strong shaking, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), which recorded at least five aftershocks throughout the night.

Casualties and destruction swept across at least five provinces.

Near the epicentre in eastern Afghanistan, around 800 people were killed and 2,500 injured in remote Kunar province alone, chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Another 12 people were killed and 255 were injured in neighbouring Nangarhar province, while 58 people were injured in Laghman province.

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In Wadir village in the hard-hit district of Nurgal, dozens of people joined the effort to pull people from the rubble of destroyed or severely damaged homes more than 12 hours after the initial earthquake, AFP journalists saw.

The epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, according to the USGS, which said it struck about eight kilometres below the Earth’s surface.

Such relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in low-rise, mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.

Some of the most severely impacted villages in remote Kunar provinces “remain inaccessible due to road blockages”, the UN migration agency warned in a statement to AFP.

The Taliban authorities and the United Nations mobilised rescue efforts, with the defence ministry saying at least 40 flight sorties had so far been carried out.

A member of the agricultural department in Nurgal said people had rushed to clear blocked roads in the hours after the earthquake, but that badly affected areas were remote and had limited telecoms networks.

“There is a lot of fear and tension… Children and women were screaming. We had never experienced anything like this in our lives,” Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad told AFP.

He said that many living in quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans who have returned to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years.

“They wanted to build their homes here.”

Nangarhar and Kunar provinces border Pakistan, with the Torkham crossing the site of many waves of Afghan returnees deported or forced to leave, often with no work and nowhere to go.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres added his condolences to those shared by the Taliban government and several nations.

“I stand in full solidarity with the people of Afghanistan after the devastating earthquake that hit the country earlier today,” he said.

In a post shared by the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened by the significant loss of life caused by the earthquake in the area of eastern Afghanistan”.

– Frequent quakes –

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.

Since 1900, there have been 12 earthquakes with magnitudes greater than seven in northeast Afghanistan, according to Brian Baptie, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey.

“This scale of the seismic activity, the potential for multi-hazard events, and the construction of structures in the region can combine to create significant loss of life in such events,” he said in a statement.

Nangarhar province was also hit by flooding overnight Friday to Saturday, which killed five people and destroyed crops and property, provincial authorities said.

In October 2023, western Herat province was devastated by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.

In June 2022, a 5.9-magnitude quake struck the impoverished eastern border province of Paktika, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

Ravaged by four decades of war, Afghanistan is already contending with a series of humanitarian crises.

Since the return of the Taliban, foreign aid to Afghanistan has been slashed, undermining the impoverished nation’s ability to respond to disasters.

Around 85 percent of the Afghan population lives on less than one dollar a day, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

AFP