A Taliban government spokesman said on Thursday that hundreds of bodies had been recovered from homes in the mountainous villages destroyed by a major earthquake in Afghanistan in early this week, which prompted the death toll to more than 2,200.
The 6.0 people of the eastern mountainous and worn part of the country struck late on Sunday, which resulted in the settlement of villages and besieged people under the rubble. Most of the losses were in the province of Konar, where people usually live in wooden and mud homes along the loads of a highly slope river separated in the high mountains.
About 98 percent of the buildings in the province were damaged or destroyed, according to the evaluation issued on Thursday by the Islamic Relief Society. Relief agencies said they needed employees and supplies tending to survivors from the area.
More than 1,000 people have been killed, and entire villages have been eliminated in Afghanistan-all of this 6.0 earthquake. CBC Johanna Wagstaffe reports why this “moderate” earthquake turned into catastrophic, how geology, construction symbols and remote villages combined to make the catastrophe very fatal.
Muhammad Israel said that the earthquake unleashed the landslide of his house, livestock and property in Konar. “All the rocks were descended from the mountain,” he said. “I barely removed my children from there …. The earthquakes are still spoken. It is impossible to live there.”
Israel was staying in a United Nations medical camp in Nurgal, and it is one of the worst affected areas in Konar.
“The situation is bad for us here,” he said. “We have no shelter and we live under an open sky.”
Continuous search and rescue
Previous estimates said about 1,400 people were killed. Taliban spokesman Hamadullah Firat said on Thursday that the number of updated death was 2205 and that search and rescue efforts are continuing.
“Tents were created for people, first aid and emergency supplies were delivered.”
Eliminating terrain hinders relief efforts. The Taliban authorities have deployed helicopters and the Airdroped army commandos to help the survivors. He reported relief workers for hours to reach the villages that were cut off due to the landslides and rock.
Late Thursday, a 5.6 earthquake shook Jalalabad in Nangarhar Province, which is located in the south of the most difficult province of Connar, although there are no immediate reports on losses or damage.
Funding discounts have an effect on response. The Norwegian Refugee Council said it had less than 450 employees in Afghanistan, compared to 1100 in 2023, the date of the country’s last earthquake. The council had only one warehouse without an emergency stock.
“We will need to buy goods as soon as we get funding, but this will take possible weeks and people need now,” said Maysam Shafi, the council’s calling advisor in Afghanistan. “We only have $ 100,000 are available to support response to emergency situations. This leaves an immediate financing gap of $ 1.9 million.”
“People suffer from severe pain”
Dr. Shamshir Khan, who was attending the injured in the United Nations camp in Nurgal, said his condition deteriorated after seeing the suffering of others.
“Neither these medications are sufficient nor these services,” he said. “These people need more medications and tents. They need clean food and drinking water. These people suffer from severe pain.”
The Minister of State in Qatar for International Cooperation, Maryam Bint Ali bin Nasser Al -Misanad, arrived in Kabul on Wednesday to supervise the delivery of aid to the victims of the earthquake.
She is the first minister to visit Afghanistan on a humanitarian mission since the Taliban seized power in 2021, and the first high -ranking foreign official to travel there since the earthquake.
Relief organizations describe the latest catastrophe as a crisis. Afghanistan was already struggling with drought, weak economy and the last return of about two million Afghans from neighboring countries.
The flat homes and homes in the villages in eastern Afghanistan remain after an earthquake of 6.0 filling on Sunday, with a tremor of 5.2 Rit in the area on Tuesday. The survivors talked about the horrific ordeal, as one man recovered in a hospital in Jalalabad, saying that five relatives were killed and five others were injured when the earthquake destroyed their home.
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