- Devastating Afghan earthquake claims thousands.
- Urgent need for shelter and aid.
- Taliban faces humanitarian challenges.
Tuesday began a winter of privation for hundreds of Afghans who survived a severe earthquake that killed nearly 2,000. Rescuers were making last-ditch efforts to locate survivors.
Graves were being dug in the province of Herat since Saturday’s magnitude 6.3 earthquake, which was followed by intense aftershocks. In the province, volunteers have utilised spades and pickaxes.
The United Nations estimates that over 12,000 individuals, comprising approximately 1,700 families, have been impacted.
It was stated that “one hundred percent” of dwellings were devastated in eleven villages located in the Zenda Jan district.
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Zareen, who resided in the village of Nayeb Rafi and lost eleven family members in the collapse of masonry, stated that aid tents were incapable of withstanding the winter storms.
“We will be stranded here if the government does not remove us or assist us,” the 70-year-old told AFP.
The provision of extensive shelter will present a formidable task for the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan. Which have strained relations with international aid organisations and assumed power in August 2021.
“Not a single house remains; not even a room where we could spend the night,” Mohammad Naeem, age 40, told AFP. His mother was among the twelve relatives he lost.
“We can no longer reside in this location. Evidently, our family was martyred in this location. “How were we able to survive here?”
In the difficult-to-reach Zenda Jan district, the provincial capital of Herat, located 30 kilometres (19 miles) southeast of the epicentres of the earthquakes, Doctors Without Borders reported that the injured were now confronted with an additional ordeal.
“Because they have no homes to return to, more than 340 patients who were discharged yesterday do not wish to leave the hospital,” the charity wrote on the social media platform X.
Local and national authorities provided contradictory tonnages for fatalities and injuries; however, the disaster ministry has confirmed 2,053 fatalities.
“We cannot provide exact figures for the number of fatalities and injuries at this time due to the fluid situation,” said Mullah Janan Sayeq, a spokesman for the ministry of disaster management.
On Tuesday, the UN reported roughly 1,300 deaths and nearly 500 missing, mostly women.
Afghanistan is prone to devastating earthquakes, but the weekend disaster was the worst in 25 years.
The prohibition on women working for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the United Nations (UN) in Afghanistan by Taliban authorities complicates the evaluation of family requirements in the country’s most profoundly conservative regions.
Humanitarian agencies should be granted unrestricted access to the afflicted regions and Amnesty International has advised the Taliban government to ensure that rescue and relief operations are conducted “without discrimination” and “without prejudice.”
It is critical that all assistance meets the needs of the most vulnerable groups, including women, who frequently face compounded challenges in times of crisis,” said Zaman Sultani, a regional researcher for South Asia.
The majority of rural dwellings in Afghanistan are constructed with mud and wooden support pillars, with little modern steel reinforcement.
Multigenerational extended families make local communities more vulnerable to disasters like Saturday’s earthquake.
Due to the Taliban’s resurgence, foreign aid has stopped, causing a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
Save the Children characterised the earthquakes as “an additional crisis.”
Along the frontier with Iran, Herat province, which is home to approximately 1.9 million people, has also been crippled by a years-long drought that has affected numerous impoverished agricultural communities.
India is prone to earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range at the Eurasian-Indian tectonic plate boundary.
Last June, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake in underdeveloped Paktika left tens of thousands homeless and over a thousand dead.
When Takhar province was struck by a magnitude 6.5 earthquake in 1998, over 4,000 persons perished.
