More than 1,100 dead after earthquake and aftershocks in eastern Afghanistan

Jiyan, Afghanistan (AFP) – An aftershock claimed more lives on Friday and threatened more misery in a region of eastern Afghanistan reeling from a powerful earthquake that state media said killed 1,150 people this week.

Of those killed in Wednesday’s 6.0-magnitude earthquake, 121 were children, said Muhammad Ayoya, UNICEF representative in Afghanistan, but that number was expected to rise. He said nearly 70 children were injured.

Read more: Afghans search for survivors in aftermath of devastating earthquake

This earthquake struck a remote mountainous region already struggling with extreme poverty at a time when the country as a whole is spiraling into an economic crisis after many countries withdrew critical funding and development aid in the wake of the Taliban takeover. On Friday, the Pakistan Meteorological Department reported a new 4.2-magnitude earthquake that the state-run Bakhtar News Agency reported claiming five more lives in the hard-hit Jayan district and injuring 11 people.

International aid has been keeping the country afloat, and its withdrawal has left millions unable to afford food and overburdened already struggling medical facilities. Nearly half of the population of 38 million cannot meet their basic food needs, while some civil servants, such as doctors, nurses and teachers, have not received their salaries for several months because the Taliban government is unable to access frozen foreign reserves. Salary delays persist throughout the public sector.

Afghanistan’s international isolation also complicates relief efforts as there are fewer aid organizations in the country, and international sanctions on Afghan banks make it difficult to send money into the country. Despite waivers from the US Treasury that allow money to be sent to aid groups, banks are reluctant to engage with such transactions for fear of breaking the rules anyway.

Aid groups regret that it means they have to pay local employees with bags of cash, which their employees physically carry into the country and then distribute throughout the provinces in person. This process is expensive, and charges along the way for transportation and security.

Aid organizations like the local Red Crescent and UN agencies like the World Food Program have sent food, tents, sleeping mats and other necessities to families in Paktika province, the epicenter, and neighboring Khost province. Several countries sent aid cargo planes.

However, residents appeared largely on their own to deal with the fallout, as their new Taliban-led government and the international aid community struggle to provide assistance. The poor mountain roads leading to the affected areas were exacerbated by the damage and rain.

Thousands of stone and adobe homes collapsed in the nightly earthquake, often trapping entire families in the rubble. Many of those who survived spent the first night outside in the cold rain. Since then, villagers have been burying their dead and digging among the rubble by hand in search of survivors.

The director of the Taliban’s Bakhtar News Agency said on Friday that the death toll from the first earthquake had risen to 1,150. Abdul Wahed Rayan said 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.

State media reported that nearly 3,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, including at least 1,000 homes in Jayan. While modern buildings withstand earthquakes of magnitude 6 elsewhere, adobe homes and mountains prone to landslides make such earthquakes much more dangerous.

In villages in Gayan district, where Associated Press reporters roamed for hours Thursday, families who had spent the previous rainy night out in the open lifted logs from collapsed roofs and manually pulled stones in search of their missing loved ones. Taliban fighters were deployed in vehicles in the area, but a few of them were seen helping excavate the rubble.

There was no indication of heavy equipment – only one bulldozer was spotted in transit. Ambulances circulated, but there was little other help for the living. A 6-year-old boy in Guyenne cried saying that his parents, two sisters and a brother had all died. He had fled the ruins of his home and took refuge with the neighbours.

The Afghan economy was dependent on international donor support and assistance even before the Taliban seized power last August as the United States and its NATO allies withdrew their forces, ending a 20-year war that drove the same insurgents out of power in the wake of the 9/11 attack.

Aid groups still operating in Afghanistan are now struggling to get medical supplies, food and tents to the remote quake-hit region, but UN agencies are facing a funding shortfall of $3 billion this year.

Read more: Taliban in Afghanistan orders head-to-toe headscarves for women

Trucks of food and other supplies have arrived from Pakistan, and planes full of humanitarian aid have landed from Iran, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. India has sent a technical team to the capital, Kabul, to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian aid. India said its aid would be delivered to a UN agency on the ground and to the Afghan Red Crescent Society.

Other countries that offered help were doing their best to ensure that they would only work through UN agencies, not with the Taliban, which no government has yet officially recognized. Some have called on the Taliban to address human rights concerns first, primarily the rights and freedoms of Afghan women and girls.

Associated Press writers Rahim Fayez in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Aya Batrawi in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.

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