Round 500 folks have been killed and 1000 extra injured in an earthquake that struck jap Afghanistan on Monday.
Ali Khara | Reuters
Certainly one of Afghanistan’s worst earthquakes killed greater than 800 folks and injured no less than 2,800, authorities mentioned on Monday, as rescuers struggled to achieve distant areas because of tough mountainous terrain and inclement climate.
The catastrophe will additional stretch the assets of the war-torn nation’s Taliban administration, already grappling with crises starting from a pointy drop in international help to deportations of a whole bunch of hundreds of Afghans by neighboring international locations.
Sharafat Zaman, spokesperson for the well being ministry in Kabul, referred to as for worldwide help to sort out the devastation wrought by the quake of magnitude 6 that struck round midnight native time, at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).
“We want it as a result of right here numerous folks misplaced their lives and homes,” he instructed Reuters.
The quake killed 812 folks within the jap provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar, administration spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid mentioned.
Ziaul Haq Mohammadi, a pupil at Al-Falah College within the jap metropolis of Jalalabad, was finding out in his room at residence when the quake struck. He mentioned he tried to face up however was knocked over by the facility of the tremor.
“We spent the entire evening in worry and anxiousness as a result of at any second one other earthquake might occur,” Mohammadi mentioned.
Mudbrick houses collapse
Rescuers had been battling to achieve distant mountainous areas minimize off from cell networks alongside the Pakistani border, the place mudbrick houses dotting the slopes collapsed within the quake.
“The realm of the earthquake was affected by heavy rain within the final 24-48 hours as effectively, so the danger of landslides and rock slides can also be fairly important – that’s the reason lots of the roads are impassable,” Kate Carey, an officer on the U.N. Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), instructed Reuters.
Rescue groups and authorities try to get rid of animal carcasses shortly in order to reduce the danger of contamination to water assets, Carey mentioned.
Afghan males seek for their belongings amidst the rubble of a collapsed home after a lethal magnitude-6 earthquake that struck Afghanistan round midnight, in Dara Mazar, in Kunar province, Afghanistan, Sept. 1, 2025.
Stringer | Reuters
Casualties might rise as rescue groups entry extra remoted places, authorities mentioned.
“All our … groups have been mobilized to speed up help, in order that complete and full help could be supplied,” mentioned well being ministry spokesperson Abdul Maten Qanee, citing efforts in areas from safety to meals and well being.
Reuters Tv photographs confirmed helicopters ferrying out the affected, whereas residents helped safety forces and medics carry the wounded to ambulances in an space with an extended historical past of earthquakes and floods.
Army rescue groups fanned out throughout the area, the defence ministry mentioned, with 40 flights carrying away 420 wounded and lifeless.
The quake razed three villages in Kunar, with substantial harm in lots of others, authorities mentioned. At the least 610 folks had been killed in Kunar with 12 lifeless in Nangarhar, they added.
Some villagers sat weeping amid the piled ruins of their houses. Others started laboriously clearing the particles by hand, or carried out the injured on makeshift stretchers.
“That is Mazar Dara in Nurgal district. Your complete village has been destroyed,” one sufferer instructed reporters. “Kids and elders are trapped underneath the rubble. We want pressing assist.”
One other survivor mentioned: “We want ambulances, we want docs, we want every part to rescue the injured and get better the lifeless.”
It was Afghanistan’s third main lethal quake because the Taliban took over in 2021 as international forces withdrew, triggering a minimize to the worldwide funding that shaped the majority of presidency funds.
Diplomats and help officers say crises elsewhere on the earth, together with donor frustration over the Taliban’s insurance policies in the direction of ladies, together with curbs on those that are help staff, have spurred the cuts in funding.
Even humanitarian help, aimed toward bypassing political establishments to serve pressing wants, has shrunk to $767 million this 12 months, down from $3.8 billion in 2022.
Appeals for funding
Humanitarian businesses say they’re combating a forgotten disaster in Afghanistan, the place the United Nations estimates greater than half the inhabitants is in pressing want of humanitarian help.
“To date, no international governments have reached out to offer help for rescue or reduction work,” a spokesperson of Afghanistan’s international workplace mentioned on Monday.
Later, a spokesperson for China’s international ministry mentioned it was prepared to offer catastrophe reduction help “based on Afghanistan’s wants and inside its capability”.
In the meantime, Overseas Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar of India mentioned it had delivered 1,000 household tents to Kabul and was transferring 15 tonnes of meals materials to Kunar, with extra reduction materials to be despatched from India beginning on Tuesday.
The U.S. State Division’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs posted its condolences on X on Monday for the lack of life within the earthquake, however didn’t instantly reply when requested if the US would offer any help.
Afghanistan has been badly affected since U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration in January started slashing funding to its humanitarian arm, USAID, and help packages worldwide as a part of a broader plan to finish what it deems wasteful spending.
U.N. Secretary Normal Antonio Guterres mentioned its mission in Afghanistan was getting ready to assist these in areas devastated by the quake. Pope Leo additionally despatched condolences for the lifeless.
Afghanistan is liable to lethal earthquakes, notably within the Hindu Kush mountain vary, the place the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.
A 6.1-magnitude earthquake that killed 1,000 folks within the jap area in 2022 was the primary main pure catastrophe confronted by the Taliban authorities.
