Rescuers are trying to reach remote areas in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar region after a devastating earthquake killed more than 1,120 people and injured over 3,250, according to the Afghan Red Crescent Society, and flattened villages and buildings.
The death toll is likely to rise. The Red Crescent also said 8,000 houses had been destroyed.
The provincial head of disaster management, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said early on Tuesday that efforts would be extended to more of the region’s mountainous areas.
“We cannot accurately predict how many bodies might still be trapped under the rubble,” said Ehsan.
“Our effort is to complete these operations as soon as possible and to begin distributing aid to the affected families,” he noted, adding that some of those who were injured have been transferred to hospitals in the capital, Kabul, and to the adjacent Nangarhar province.
Just before midnight on Sunday, a shallow magnitude 6 earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan – one of the deadliest the country has experienced.
The mountainous terrain is making rescue work difficult, with volunteers unable to reach isolated areas along the Pakistani border, where mostly mud-brick homes have been destroyed.
According to Ehsan, gaining vehicle access on the narrow mountainous roads has been the main obstacle for relief work.
‘Extremely challenging’
In a situational update, the World Health Organization (WHO) reiterated that the destruction of roads and the remote locations of many villages “severely impede the delivery of aid”.
“The pre-earthquake fragility of the health system means local capacity is overwhelmed, creating total dependence on external actors,” said the WHO, adding that more than 12,000 people had been affected.
Homa Nader, the acting deputy head of delegation with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera it has become “nearly impossible” to continue with the rescue effort due to the destruction of roads.
“The challenges still remain. We had Andma, the disaster management directive that came in yesterday with heavy machinery to clear out some of the road and the rubble to be able to support with access so that humanitarian actors like the Afghan Red Crescent Society can go and operate search and rescue operations, but unfortunately, it’s extremely challenging,” Nader said.
She added that while they wait for a full incident report from the organisation, it is “absolutely likely that those [death toll] numbers would dramatically increase because we are not getting to the most remote villages as of yet”.
Afghanistan has experienced devastating earthquakes in the past due to its location at the meeting point where the Indian and Eurasian plates converge.
The deadliest earthquake took place in October 2023, which killed more than 2,000 people in Herat province.
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