Only piles of rubble, a future of mourning after the earthquake in Afghanistan which kills thousands
ZINDA JAN, Afghanistan: People searched through the rubble of the earthquake in western Afghanistan to recover their few belongings, but the material losses seemed insignificant.
Saturday’s 6.3 magnitude earthquake killed and injured thousands of people when it destroyed countless homes in Herat province. Sifting through the rubble on Monday, Asadullah Khan paused to reflect on a future blighted by grief.
Khan lost three daughters, his mother and his sister-in-law. Five members of his uncle’s family died. His neighbors are also distressed.
“We lost 23 people in this village,” Khan said.
Mounds of rubble line the road that runs through the Zinda Jan neighborhood. Some door frames remain standing. There were few people in sight Monday.
Taliban-appointed Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdul Ghani Baradar and his team visited the earthquake-hit region on Monday to provide “immediate relief assistance” and ensure “equitable and accurate distribution of aid,” authorities said.
Senior UN officials also visited Zinda Jan to assess the extent of the damage. And in neighboring Pakistan, the government held a special session to review aid to Afghanistan, including relief teams, food, medicine, tents and blankets.
The Taliban supreme leader has made no public comments on the earthquake.
Afghanistan has few reliable statistics, but a spokesman for the Afghan National Disaster Authority, Janan Sayiq, told reporters in Kabul that about 4,000 people had been killed or injured by the disaster. He did not provide a death toll, but the United Nations estimates that 1,023 people were killed and 1,663 people injured in 11 villages in Zinda Jan alone.
Nearly 2,000 homes in 20 villages were destroyed, the Taliban said. The area affected by the earthquake has only one public hospital.
Saturday’s epicenter was about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the city of Herat, the provincial capital, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Several aftershocks were violent, notably that of Monday which once again pushed the city’s residents to rush out of their homes.
More than 35 military and nonprofit teams are involved in the rescue efforts, said Sayiq of the disaster authority.
The fast-approaching winter, combined with the new disaster, is likely to exacerbate Afghanistan’s existing challenges and make it even more difficult for the population to meet their basic needs, such as adequate shelter, food and medicine, humanitarian groups warn.
Vital infrastructure, including bridges, was destroyed and emergency response teams were deployed to provide humanitarian assistance, the International Rescue Committee said.
The global response to the earthquake has been slow, with much of the world reluctant to deal directly with the Taliban-led government and focused on the deadly escalation between Israel and the Palestinians following the surprise attack by Gaza militants SATURDAY.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian called his Afghan Taliban counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to express his condolences, according to a message on X from Hafiz Zia Ahmad, deputy spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry in Kabul. The Iranian diplomat “promised humanitarian aid to the victims,” Ahmad said.
Meanwhile, the Justice Ministry urged national and international charitable foundations, businessmen and Afghans to mobilize and gather humanitarian aid for those in need in the province.
“Due to the scale of the damage and casualties caused by this incident, a large number of our compatriots in Herat province are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance,” the ministry said in a statement.
Afghans are still reeling from recent natural disasters.
A magnitude 6.5 earthquake in March struck much of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and another earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan in June 2022, flattening stone houses and mud bricks and killing at least 1,000 people.
