Taliban rulers called for international help on Thursday after an earthquake killed more than 1,000 people in the country’s mountainous east.
The event was the deadliest of its kind in two decades. Rows of men have been preparing graves for the victims in the Afghan province of Paktika. The work contrasted with the efforts of the day before, when rescuers were forced to dig with their bare hands in a desperate search for survivors.
Poor infrastructure, with few roads in the remote region, meant that many of the injured had to be airlifted out. At least 1,500 people were injured.
The quake struck around 1:30 am Wednesday as people slept in villages in the region. “I am sure that seven or nine people from my family, who were in the same room as me, are dead,” said a villager. People are digging through the rubble with their bare hands to desperately find possible survivors.”
Government helicopters are airlifting some of the critically injured, but the Taliban have neither the resources nor the equipment to carry out an effective search and rescue mission.
Earthquake in Afghanistan already leaves more than a thousand dead
The earthquake hit one of the poorest areas of one of the poorest countries on the planet. Decades of conflict, government corruption and crippling sanctions against the Taliban regime have brought Afghanistan to its knees and left the Islamist government begging the international community for help.
Many aid groups left the country after the Taliban regained control in August 2021. “This is in a country that is already on the brink,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Foreign Affairs. Humanitarians (OCHA). He said that even before the earthquake, Afghanistan was in “a situation close to famine.” So, people are really already hanging by a thread.” As the death toll mounts, for the thousands of survivors left homeless by the earthquake and now facing an even more imminent threat of famine, the suffering is just beginning.
