India Sending Help to Afghanistan, Afghanistan Earthquake Live: Afghans stand by the bodies of relatives killed in an earthquake in Gayan village, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, June 23, 2022. (AP)Taliban Govt Allocates 1 billion AFS to Affected, Afghanistan Earthquake News Updates: A second smaller earthquake struck an area of eastern Afghanistan on Friday killing at least five people according to the state media. The tremors shook areas close to the epicentre of Wednesday’s 6.1 magnitude earthquake. US Geological Survey’s website showed a 4.3 magnitude earthquake had hit near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at 01:43 UTC time on Friday.
Authorities in Afghanistan have ended the search for survivors after an earthquake that killed over 1,000 people, a senior official said on Friday. However, Afghan-based Tolo New had earlier quoted an Islamic Emirate official as saying the toll has gone up to 1,100. Around 10,000 houses were partially or completely destroyed in Wednesday’s earthquake in a remote part of the country, Mohammad Nassim Haqqani, a spokesperson for the disaster ministry, told Reuters.
India on Thursday sent humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan. Taking an incremental step towards reopening the Indian embassy in Afghanistan, Delhi Thursday sent a “technical team” to Kabul where it will be stationed at the embassy to coordinate delivery of humanitarian aid.
A powerful earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, putting the previous estimate of those killed at 1,000. The 6.1 magnitude quake flattened more than 3,000 houses and caused widespread damage to public property. The quake was centred in Paktika province, about 50 kilometres southwest of the city of Khost, according to neighbouring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department. Experts put its depth at just 10 kilometres. Shallow earthquakes tend to cause more damage.
Afghanistan earthquake Live updates: A severe earthquake shook four districts of Paktika province. (Source: twitter/ @BakhtarNA)
Pakistan lies in an active seismic zone and is often visited by quakes of various magnitude. This is the second earthquake in a week after a 5.2 magnitude quake shook parts of the country on June 17. (@abdulkadir/Twitter screen grab)
People living in the Khost province said that due to the lack of female physicians in their province many injured women did not get any treatment. Khost residents said that in the currest situation they are facing a shortage of medical facilities in the hospitals.
International organizations, like Save the Children and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, have expressed concerns over the poor health conditions of those injured in the deadly earthquake of Khost and Paktika.
Afghanistan's international isolation is also complicating relief efforts since fewer aid organizations have a presence in the country, and many governments are wary of putting money in the Taliban's hands. (Inputs from TOLOnews and AP)
Getting donations to Afghanistan earthquake victims will be far more difficult compared with other disasters due to sanctions against the country's Taliban government and its troubled relationship with Western nations, experts say.
International groups that maintained operations in the country following the collapse of its government last year have rushed to eastern Afghanistan to coordinate aid in the region. The country's state-run news agency reported that Wednesday's 6.1-magnitude quake killed at least 1,000 and injured at least 1,500 more.
Already, the humanitarian response - which typically surges in the first 72 hours following an earthquake - has lagged in both size and speed due to the lack of pre-positioned supplies and the level of hunger and poverty that already exist in Afghanistan. Heavy rains and winds have also hampered rescue efforts. (AP)
An aftershock took more lives on Friday and threatened to pile even more misery on an area of eastern Afghanistan reeling from a powerful earthquake that state media said killed 1,150 people this week.
Among the dead from Wednesday's magnitude 6 quake are 121 children, but that figure is expected to climb, said Mohamed Ayoya, UNICEF's representative in Afghanistan. He said close to 70 children were injured.
On Friday, Pakistan's Meteorological Department reported a new, 4.2 magnitude quake that state-run Bakhtar News Agency reported took five more lives in hard-hit Gayan District and injured 11 people. (AP)
As the earth shook, she said, speaking through her tears, she felt the walls of the room collapsing on her. Then everything went dark. When Hawa, a 30-year-old mother of six, regained consciousness, she was choking on dust, and struggled to make sense of the scene around her.
“I did not expect to survive,” she said Thursday from her hospital bed in Sharana, capital of Paktika province in Afghanistan’s southeast.
Her village, Dangal Regab, like many others in Paktika’s Geyan district, was a tableau of death and destruction in the wake of the 5.9-magnitude earthquake that struck in the early hours of Wednesday — the deadliest in Afghanistan in two decades. (Read More)
Afghanistan's international isolation is also complicating relief efforts since fewer aid organizations have a presence in the country, and many governments are wary of putting money in the Taliban's hands. Aid groups lament that means they have to pay local staff with bags of cash delivered by hand.
Aid organizations like the local Red Crescent and UN agencies like the World Food Program have sent food, tents, sleeping mats and other essentials to families in Paktika province, the epicenter of the earthquake, and neighboring Khost province.
Still, residents appeared to be largely on their own to deal with the aftermath as their new Taliban-led government and the international aid community struggle to bring in help. The shoddy mountain roads leading to the affected areas were made worse by damage and rain.
Thousands of stone and mud-brick homes crumbled in the quake, which struck at night, often trapping whole families in the rubble. Many of those who survived spent the first night outside in a cold rain. Since then, villagers have been burying their dead and digging through the rubble by hand in search of survivors. (AP)
India sent family tents, blankets and other relief supplies for a team to distribute in eastern Afghan villages where a deadly earthquake collapsed thousands of timber and stone homes to rubble.
State media reported that close to 3,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged, and the death toll rose to 1,150 people with scores more wounded after the magnitude 6 quake on Wednesday. (AP)
The death toll from a devastating earthquake in Afghanistan continued to climb days after it turned brick and stone homes into rubble, killing 1,150 people and wounding scores more, according to the latest figures carried in state media on Friday. The country of 38 million people was already in the midst of a spiraling economic crisis that had plunged millions deep into poverty with over a million children at risk of severe malnutrition. (Read More)
United Nations agencies have rushed to send tonnes of relief items to Afghanistan where an earthquake struck in a remote mountainous area this week, killing 1,036 people and with the toll expected to rise, officials said on Friday.
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, has sent shelter and household supplies including 600 tents and 1,200 solar lamps to support around 4,200 survivors, spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told a briefing in Geneva.
UNHCR has deployed staff who will arrange shelters for people who have been left homeless and set up supply hubs to ferry aid from the capital Kabul, she said, adding there was also a serious risk of waterborne diseases. (Reuters)
Taiwan will donate $1 million to Afghan earthquake relief efforts in response to a call from the United Nations and others for humanitarian assistance, the government said late on Thursday.
Taiwan is not a UN member due to pressure from China which considers the democratically-governed island part of its territory, but is always keen to show it is a responsible member of the international community.
Taiwan's presidential office said in a statement that the government would donate "based on the spirit of humanitarian care for disaster relief regardless of national borders (and) responding to the United Nations and other humanitarian calls." (Reuters)
Five people were killed on Friday in eastern Afghanistan after fresh tremors shook areas close to the epicentre of Wednesday's 6.1 magnitude earthquake, a senior Afghan official said.
'(This) morning another earthquake happened in Paktika in Gayan district, according primary information... five have died,' Afghan health ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman told Reuters.
US Geological Survey's website showed a 4.3 magnitude earthquake had hit near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at 01:43 UTC time on Friday. (Reuters)
An earthquake that struck a remote mountainous area of Afghanistan this week has killed 1,036 people and the toll is expected to rise, Mohamed Ayoya, UNICEF Representative to Afghanistan, said on Friday.
United Nations agencies have rushed relief efforts to the affected area, where several thousand homes were destroyed or damaged, he told a briefing in Geneva. (Reuters)
Afghanistan does not have enough medical supplies to treat the injured from an earthquake that killed 1,000 people, a senior official said on Friday, as authorities ended the search for survivors in remote southeastern mountains.
Mohammad Nassim Haqqani, a spokesperson for the disaster ministry, told Reuters: "The health ministry does not have enough drugs, we need medical aid and other necessities because it's a big disaster."
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates all said on Thursday they planned to send aid. Supplies from Pakistan have already crossed the border. India, which has a strained relationship with the Taliban, said it had sent 27 tonnes of supplies on two flights to be handed over to international aid agencies. (Reuters)
An Afghan official has confirmed that the search and rescue operations have concluded and the total death toll is 1,000, reported Reuters.
As many as 29 people are dead and 70 injured in the earthquake in the Khost province of Afghanistan, saif a report in Afghan-based Tolo News quoting local officials. They added that around 500 houses in the province have been destroyed.
"Earthquakes have shaken this area. Now it is raining, everything is ruined, people are not able to rebuild their houses,” said Hakimullah, a victim of the earthquake, told Tolo News.
Villagers rushed to bury the dead and dug by hand through the rubble of their homes in search of survivors of a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan that state media reported killed 1,000 people.
Residents appeared to be largely on their own to deal with the aftermath as their new Taliban-led government and the international aid community struggled to bring in help.
Taking an incremental step toward reopening the Indian embassy in Afghanistan, Delhi Thursday sent a “technical team” to Kabul where it will be stationed at the embassy to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
India also sent aid to the people of Afghanistan, a day after a deadly earthquake claimed more than 1,000 lives in the Paktika province near the border with Pakistan. (Read more)
Survivors dug by hand Thursday through villages in eastern Afghanistan were reduced to rubble by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 1,000 people.
In Paktika province's hard-hit Gayan district, villagers stood atop the mud bricks that once was a home there. Others carefully walked through dirt alleyways, gripping onto damaged walls with exposed timber beams to make their way.
The roads, which are rutted and difficult to travel in the best of circumstances, may have been badly damaged, and landslides from recent rains made access even more difficult. While modern buildings withstand magnitude 6 earthquakes elsewhere, Afghanistan's mud-and-brick homes and landslide-prone mountains make such temblors even more dangerous. (AP)
At least 30 Pakistani tribal people, who were displaced during a military operation in 2014 and fled across the border, died in the powerful earthquake that hit a rural, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, a media report said Thursday.
The victims belonging to the Madakhel tribe of North Waziristan district were killed in the 6.1 magnitude quake that killed over 1,000 people and left 1,500 more wounded in Afghanistan on Wednesday.
The bodies of 30 people would be shifted to their native areas after the Pakistani authorities temporarily opened the Pak-Afghan border at Alwar Mandi, the Dawn newspaper reported. Arrangements have also been made at the Ghulam Khan border for the transportation of the injured who, according to military sources in Miranshah, would be airlifted to special medical camps being set up in the area, the report said. (PTI)
Japan to provide necessary aid for Afghanistan after earthquake - govt spokesperson
The Japanese government plans to provide assistance to Afghanistan, a government spokesperson said Thursday, after an earthquake there killed at least 1,000 people.
Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara told a regular news conference that the government was coordinating moves to "provide necessary support promptly" as well as assessing the situation to grasp local needs. (Reuters)
Afghan authorities struggled on Thursday to reach a remote area hit by an earthquake that killed 1,000 people but poor communications and a lack of proper roads hampered their efforts, officials said.
"We can't reach the area, the networks are too week, we trying to get updates," Mohammad Ismail Muawiyah, a spokesman for the top Taliban military commander in hardest-hit Paktika province, told Reuters, referring to telephone networks. (Reuters)
South Korea plans to provide $1 million in humanitarian assistance to victims of an earthquake in Afghanistan that killed 1,000 people, Seoul's foreign ministry said on Thursday. (Reuters)
The Pakistan government has sent a convoy of trucks carrying relief materials to help out the quake-struck neighbour. The trucks carrying tents, covers, blankets and medicines are expected to reach Khost via the Ghulam Khan border, reported the Pakistan-based Dawn.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan has allocated 1 billion afghanis to help those affected by the quake, reported the Afghanistan-based Tolo News.
The Ministry of State for Natural Disaster Management also announced a compensation of 100,000 Afs to the kin of the deceased.
“Based on the order of the Prime Minister, it was decided to pay the family of each dead person 100,000 Afs and family of each wounded person 50,000 Afs,” deputy Minister of State Ministry for Natural Disaster Management, Mawlawi Sharafuddin Muslim said in a press conference.
Mawlawi Hebatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban Supreme leader, extended condolences to those affected.
In the capital, Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund convened an emergency meeting at the presidential palace.
"When such a big incident happens in any country, there is a need for help from other countries," said Sharafuddin Muslim, deputy minister of state for disaster management. "It is very difficult for us to be able to respond to this huge incident."
That may prove difficult given the international isolation of Afghanistan under the Taliban, who were toppled from power by the US in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The newly restored government has issued a flurry of edicts curtailing the rights of women and girls and the news media in a turn back toward the Taliban's harsh rule from the late 1990s.
"This does add a lot to the daily burden of survival," the UN's Alakbarov said of the quake. "We are not optimistic today." (Reuters)
The US State Department said it was not aware of any request for American assistance from Afghanistan's Taliban government after an earthquake there on Wednesday that killed at least 1,000 people.
The United States expects the humanitarian response to the disaster to be a topic of conversation between Taliban and US officials in the coming days, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters. (Read more)
Paktika province: In this photo released by a set-run news agency Bakhtar, Afghans look at destruction caused by an earthquake in the province of Paktika, eastern Afghanistan, Wednesday, June 22, 2022. AP/PTI
Afghanistan's state-run news agency says an earthquake in the country's east has killed 1,000 people and injured 1,500 others.
That latest figure came from the Bakhtar News Agency as officials tried to help those affected by Wednesday's temblor.
Rescue efforts are likely to be complicated since many international aid agencies left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover of the country last year and the chaotic withdrawal of the U.S. military from the longest war in its history.(AP)
AFGHAN DISASTER MANAGEMENT OFFICIAL: EARTHQUAKE DEATH TOLL RISES TO 920 (NOT 950), WITH 610 INJURED(Reuters)
An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 killed 950 people in Afghanistan early on Wednesday, disaster management officials said, with more than 600 injured and the toll expected to grow as information trickles in from remote mountain villages.(Reuters)
Afghan emergency official says at least 920 people killed, 600 injured in powerful earthquake.(AP)
A powerful earthquake struck a rural, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border early Wednesday, killing at least 280 people and injuring 600 others, authorities said.
Officials warned the death toll would likely rise.
Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6.1 temblor that damaged buildings in Khost and Paktika provinces.
It comes as the international community has largely left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover of the country last year and the chaotic withdrawal of the U.S. military from the longest war in its history.(AP)
Authorities had launched a rescue operation and helicopters were being used to reach the injured and take in medical supplies and food, he added. Shaking was felt by about 119 million people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, the EMSC said on Twitter. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties in Pakistan. The disaster comes as Afghanistan has been enduring a severe economic crisis since the Taliban took over August, as U.S.-led international forces were withdrawing after two decades of war.
Photographs on Afghan media showed houses reduced to rubble and bodies covered in blankets on the ground. The EMSC put the magnitude at 6.1 though the USGC said it was 5.9. Most of the confirmed deaths were in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika, where 255 people had been killed and more than 200 injured, said interior ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi. In Khost province, 25 people had been killed and 90 taken to hospital, he said.
The quake struck about 44 km (27 miles) from the city of Khost, near the Pakistani border, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGC) said. "Strong and long jolts," a resident of the Afghan capital, Kabul, posted on the website of the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC). "It was strong," said a resident of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.
An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 killed at least 280 people in Afghanistan early on Wednesday, officials said, adding that hundreds of people were injured and the toll was likely to rise as information trickled in from remote mountain villages. The quake struck about 44 km (27 miles) from the city of Khost, near the Pakistani border, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGC) said.
The deadly earthquake comes as the international community largely has left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover amid the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal. That likely will complicate any relief efforts for the country of 38 million people. (AP)
State-run Bakhtar news agency's director-general, Abdul Wahid Rayan, wrote on Twitter, “A severe earthquake shook four districts of Paktika province, killing and injuring hundreds of our countrymen and destroying dozens of houses,” Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, separately wrote on Twitter. “We urge all aid agencies to send teams to the area immediately to prevent further catastrophe.”
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Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6 temblor that struck Paktika province, but it comes as the international community largely has left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover of the country last year amid the chaotic withdrawal of the US military from the longest war in its history. That likely will complicate any relief efforts for this country of 38 million people.
Here are some pictures from Afghanistan.
The state-run Bakhtar news agency reported the death toll and said rescuers were arriving by helicopter. The news agency’s director-general, Abdul Wahid Rayan, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses have been destroyed in Paktika and dozens of people are believed trapped under the rubble.
At least 255 people were killed after an earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, authorities said. Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6 temblor that struck Paktika province, but it comes as the international community largely has left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover of the country last year amid the chaotic withdrawal of the US military from the longest war in its history. That likely will complicate any relief efforts for this country of 38 million people.
Hello and welcome to our Afghanistan earthquake blog. An Earthquake has hit Afghanistan's Paktika province killing at least 255 people. Follow for updates