More than 800 people were killed and more than 2,700 were injured by the 6 -magnitude Richter earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban government announced today, while at least 5 strong aftershocks have been recorded in the country.

The epicenter of the earthquake, which had a focal depth of just 8 kilometers, was found 27 kilometers from Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar provinces, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

However, most dead have been recorded in the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar, according to a press conference by Kabul by Taliban government spokesman Zambihulah Mujahid.

Taliban authorities send dozens of helicopters with rescuers, while AFP reporters have seen hundreds of security forces loading mainly white savannahs on helicopters.

According to the Afghan Ministry of Defense, 40 flights have already been carried out to transport assistance and the removal of dozens of dead and injured.

By 2021, when they returned to power in Afghanistan, the Taliban has faced another devastating earthquake: in 2023 in Herat, in the western part of the country near the border with Iran, when more than 1,500 people were killed and more than 63.00 were destroyed.

This time the temporary report is 800 dead and 2,500 injured in Kunar and 12 dead and 255 injured in Nangarhar.

Afghan officials do not stop repeating that the reports of the victims will increase as investigations into isolated, mountainous areas along the border with Pakistan are continuing where many mud and stones houses have collapsed, and declaring that the damage to Kunar is “too much”.

According to the Ministry of Health, three villages were leveled in this province, and serious damage has been reported in many more.

“We have never seen anything like this before,” said Iyaz Ulhak Yand, a Nourgalkkal official in Kunar province. “It was scary, the kids and the women screaming,” he added.

Most families, he explained, had just returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan or Iran from where the authorities were expelled.

“There are about 2,000 families of immigrants who had returned and intended to build their home” in this rural area bordering Pakistan, he said.

In addition, the Nangarhar province had been affected last week by sudden floods that cost five people and caused material damage to rural and residential areas.

Afghanistan

In Afghanistan there are often strong earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Cous Mountains area where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plate intersect.

But today was particularly powerful, with AFP reporters reporting that they felt the vibration in Kabul, as well as in Islamabad, Pakistan, 370 kilometers from the focus.

Meanwhile, the UN mission to Afghanistan, one of the latest international organizations still operating in the country, expressed “its deep sorrow over the devastating earthquake that caused hundreds of dead”.

“Our teams are on the spot to provide emergency help,” he added.

For his part, UN Secretary -General Antonio Guterres expressed “his full solidarity with the Afghan people”.

Humanitarian organizations complain that in Afghanistan a forgotten crisis is unfolding, with the UN estimating that more than half of the country’s population needs humanitarian aid as it is below the poverty line.

Diplomats and executives of relief organizations note that the crises that have erupted elsewhere in the world, as well as the indignation of donors to policies adopted by Taliban about women have led to a drastic reduction in humanitarian aid received by Afghanistan.

“So far no foreign government has expressed its intention to provide us with support,” a spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry said.

China is ready to offer help “based on the needs of Afghanistan and to its extent to its potential,” a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said shortly afterwards.

Fears that injured Afghan women may receive care after men

According to the BBC, Kunar is a very conservative area, so for cultural reasons women may end up taking care after men. There are fears that some women may have chosen to stay or wait to dawn to be taken to the hospital by their families, the BBC comments.

In the powerful earthquake in the province in 2022 the number of injured women in hospitals increased just two days later.

It is noted that there are no female rescuers on the spot.

Afghanistan