At least 800 people have been killed and more than 2,500 injured after a powerful earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan, flattening villages and leaving rescuers struggling to reach remote communities.
The 6.0-magnitude quake hit late on Sunday in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, with tremors felt as far away as Kabul and across the border in Islamabad and Lahore.
Entire homes were reduced to rubble in mountain districts where people were already hit hard by relentless monsoon rains, with survivors pulled from beneath collapsed walls.
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On Monday morning, aftershocks continued to rattle the region with some as high as magnitude 5. Tremors were felt as far as Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, and North India.
Authorities warned the death toll could rise even further as rescue teams battle blocked roads, landslides and unstable buildings.
Helicopters were deployed to move the injured to hospitals in Jalalabad and Kabul, while volunteers dug through debris in villages where dozens of families are still unaccounted for.
Interior ministry officials said the scale of destruction was worst in rural areas close to the epicentre, where fragile mud-brick houses stood little chance against the force of the quake.
Videos from Nangarhar, one of the worst-affected regions, showed people frantically digging through rubble with their hands, searching for loved ones in the dead of night.
The injured were stretchered out of collapsed buildings and into helicopters.
One resident in Nurgal district, one of the worst-affected areas in Kunar, said almost the entire village had collapsed.
“Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble,” the villager, who did not give his name, told The Associated Press.
“We need help here,” he said. “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.”
The disaster comes as Afghanistan reels from months of flooding that displaced thousands and amid a severe shortfall in international aid. Relief agencies said the earthquake could deepen what the UN has described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
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The Taliban has urged international aid agencies to provide assistance. The UN and charities like the Red Cross have started providing relief.
Meanwhile, India’s external minister, S Jaishankar, said the country will “extend assistance in this hour of need” to Afghanistan, expressing “solidarity to Afghan people”.
Afghanistan is often struck by earthquakes as it lies in a seismically active zone in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which sits near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
In 2023, Afghanistan suffered a devastating magnitude-6.3 earthquake in October 2023, which flattened villages and left thousands displaced.
The Taliban estimated the death toll to be over 4,000; however, the UN confirmed at least 1,500 fatalities.
The epicentre in Zindajan district was hit hardest, with nearly 100 per cent of homes destroyed and over 1,294 deaths there alone.
Due to sanctions and international isolation, rescue workers said at the time, that there was little to no aid available for the people and thousands remained trapped for days without help.
