Rescue workers are working desperately to reach remote mountainous regions of eastern Afghanistan after one of the country’s worst earthquakes killed more than 800 people and injured at least 2,500, Afghan officials said.
The death toll could rise further, the Taliban government has warned, as Afghans scramble to save loved ones from beneath the rubble and devastated villages are cut off by resulting landslides.
The 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck the eastern province of Kunar, near the city of Jalalabad in neighbouring Nangarhar province, late on Sunday night. The quake was shallow, just five miles from the Earth’s surface, likely making it more destructive.
Tremors could be felt in neighbouring Pakistan, across the northwestern border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and as far as the country’s capital, Islamabad, which is more than 185 miles away, the Pakistan Meteorological Department said. No major damage or casualties were reported in Pakistan.
The Taliban’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said 812 people were killed and more than 2,500 injured by Monday evening.
Most of the casualties were reported in Kunar province, where many of the homes in rural and outlying villages are made of mud and wood and are poorly built.
One resident in Nurgal district, one of the worst-affected areas in Kunar, said his village has been almost entirely destroyed. “Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble,” the villager told AP news agency.
“We need help here. We need people to come here and join us. Let us pull out the people who are buried. There is no one who can come and remove dead bodies from under the rubble.”
Footage showed aid workers carrying casualties from collapsed buildings and into helicopters as people dug through rubble with their hands. Road access was difficult for aid workers in the mountainous regions hardest hit by the quake, with landslides slowing down rescue efforts.
“The area of the earthquake was affected by heavy rain in the last 24-48 hours as well, so the risk of landslides and rock slides is also quite significant – that is why many of the roads are impassable,” Kate Carey, a Kabul-based officer with the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, said on Monday.
The earthquake has intensified existing humanitarian challenges in Afghanistan, said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as he urged the international community to support relief efforts.
“This adds death and destruction to other challenges, including drought and the forced return of millions of Afghans from neighbouring countries,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter. “Hopefully, the donor community will not hesitate to support relief efforts.”
It was the third major deadly earthquake in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control of the country in 2021. After the takeover, global funding cuts that once formed the bulk of the Afghan government’s finances have significantly hampered the country’s ability to respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Donald Trump’s cuts to foreign aid earlier this year dealt a crippling blow to Afghanistan’s fragile economy, forcing hundreds of hospitals and healthcare centres to shut down.
“This earthquake strikes a country already facing lack of global support for a severe humanitarian crisis,” Graham Davison, Afghanistan director for humanitarian organisation Care, said. “Nearly half of the population of Afghanistan – 23 million people – is already reliant on humanitarian aid, and yet the humanitarian response plan is only 28 per cent funded.”
