Afghanistan ends search for survivors of devastating earthquake

Issued on: 06/24/2022 – 10:05 Modified: 06/24/2022 – 10:23

A senior official said Friday that authorities in Afghanistan have ended the search for survivors of Wednesday’s earthquake, adding that supplies of medicine and other vital aid are insufficient.

About 2,000 people were injured and 10,000 homes were partially or completely destroyed by Wednesday’s earthquake in a remote area near the border with Pakistan, Mohammad Naseem Haqqani, spokesman for the Ministry of Disasters, told Reuters.

Haqqani said that “the search operation has ended, and a thousand people were killed and about two thousand were seriously and superficially injured.”

He did not explain why the search for survivors was called off after about 48 hours. The survivors were pulled out from the rubble of other earthquakes after a much longer time.

The director of the Taliban’s state-run Bakhtar news agency said on Friday that the death toll from the quake had risen to 1,150. Abdul Wahed Rayan also said that at least 1,600 people were injured.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs put the death toll at 770.

It is not clear how the death toll is arrived at, given the difficulties in reaching and communicating with the affected villages. Any of the horrific losses would make Afghanistan’s deadliest earthquake in two decades.

The 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck about 160 km southeast of Kabul, in a barren mountainous region dotted with small settlements that have often been at the heart of Afghanistan’s decades-old war.

Poor communications and a lack of proper roads have hampered relief efforts in a country already suffering from a humanitarian crisis that has worsened since the Taliban took over last August.

Haqqani said Afghanistan does not have enough critical supplies to treat the wounded.

“The Ministry of Health does not have enough medicines and we need medical help and other necessities because it is a big disaster,” he said.

Afghan and international rescuers scramble to reach the quake zone

03:06

Entire villages were flattened in some of the worst-hit areas, with survivors saying they were struggling to find equipment to bury their dead.

“There are no blankets, no tents, no shelter. Our water distribution system is completely destroyed. There is literally nothing to eat,” Zaitullah Gurziwal, 21, told an AFP team that arrived in his village in hard-hit Paktika state.

Heavy rains and floods are hampering efforts to reach those affected, said Muhammad Amin Hudhaifa, the governorate’s media official.

The earthquake hit areas already reeling from the effects of heavy rain, causing rockfalls and mudslides that wiped out small villages floating precariously on mountain slopes.

The earthquake also destroyed cell phone towers and power lines.

The earthquake occurred 44 km from the city of Khost, near the Pakistani border, at a depth of 51 km. © France 24

The rescue operation was seen as a major test for the hardline Islamist Taliban movement, which took power with the withdrawal of US-led international forces from Afghanistan after 20 years of war.

The country has since become largely isolated, cut off from much direct international aid due to sanctions.

On Thursday, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates said they were planning to send aid. Supplies from neighboring Pakistan have already crossed the border.

India, which has tense relations with the Taliban, said it had sent 27 tons of supplies on two flights for delivery to international aid agencies.

Large parts of South Asia are seismically active because the tectonic plate known as the Indian plate pushes north into the Eurasian plate.

An earthquake struck remote northeastern Afghanistan in 2015, killing several hundred in Afghanistan and neighboring northern Pakistan. A 6.1-magnitude earthquake killed nearly 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan in 2002. A 6.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent earthquakes in northeastern Afghanistan killed at least 4,500 people in 1998.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and REUTERS)

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