Earthquake in Afghanistan, hopes of finding survivors

Hopes of finding survivors are disappearing today, three days after a powerful earthquake struck Afghanistan, while members of the military's special forces dropped from planes in the country's eastern mountainous regions to take part in rescue operations.

After a powerful 6.0 quake struck eastern Afghanistan on Sunday evening, a second quake of 5.5 magnitude Tuesday evening caused panic in residents. The second quake levelled houses that had been partially damaged by the first.

The Challenge of Rescue Operations Is Great

Almost all the victims (1,411 dead, 3,124 wounded) of the earthquake -- one of the most deadly ever recorded in the country -- were in the Kunar province, although the provinces of Leghman and Nangarhar were also seriously affected by the quake.

In Kunari's Nurgal district, people are still trapped under rubble and rescue efforts are difficult, a local official said. Land slides have also blocked access to several villages. The nongovernmental organisation Save the Children announced that its teams were forced to walk 20 kilometers to “reach a world-bound village isolated from landslides, carrying medical equipment on its back”.

55 evacuation flights

Over two days, the Afghan Defence Ministry organised 155 helicopter flights to transport approximately 2,000 injured and their relatives to hospitals. A small field clinic has been established in Mazar Dara, a village in the province of Kunar, to offer first aid to the wounded, but the survivors have not been given tents to shelter, an AFP correspondent said.

Meanwhile, dozens of members of special forces were parachuted into planes in areas where helicopters cannot sit to help transport the wounded, said Ehsanullah Ehsan, head of the disaster management agency in Kunar.

According to him, a camp has been set up in the area to coordinate emergency supplies and assistance. At the same time, two other centres have opened near the quake's era to manage the transport of the wounded, the burial of the dead, and rescue operations for survivors. According to the UN, hundreds of thousands of people may have been affected by the earthquake.

Limited Sources

Sources to provide emergency assistance to the affected are especially limited to Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world with 42 million people who has received very little help from the international community since the tragedy. Only Russia recognises the Taliban authorities, and since they came to power in 2021, providing humanitarian aid to Afghanistan has dropped sharply.

The effects of the quake are even more serious because of the poor construction of homes made of wood and stones that do not protect from earthquakes, while at the same time land in affected areas is unstable after many days of heavy rainfall, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Appeal for Support From Afghanistan

O CHA and other UN agencies have called for aid in Afghanistan and have already given $5m to the country. The NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) stressed that humanitarian response must escalate quickly.

We saw many patients taking care of the corridors and health workers who needed supplies”, Dr. Stallal Hadi, deputy co-ordinator of the MSF in Afghanistan, adding that the country's hospitals were already overcrowded before the earthquake.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (OBSH) said Tuesday evening it needed an additional $3m to implement its emergency plan, warning of the risk of epidemics among already vulnerable displaced persons. /Periscopi/