The provincial head of catastrophe administration, Ehsanullah Ehsan, says they can not ‘predict’ the variety of our bodies trapped below the rubble.
Printed On 2 Sep 2025
Rescuers are attempting to succeed in distant areas in Afghanistan’s jap Kunar area after a devastating earthquake killed greater than 1,120 folks and injured over 3,250, in line with the Afghan Crimson Crescent Society, and flattened villages and buildings.
The dying toll is prone to rise. The Crimson Crescent additionally stated 8,000 homes had been destroyed.
The provincial head of catastrophe administration, Ehsanullah Ehsan, stated early on Tuesday that efforts could be prolonged to extra of the area’s mountainous areas.
“We can’t precisely predict what number of our bodies would possibly nonetheless be trapped below the rubble,” stated Ehsan.
“Our effort is to finish these operations as quickly as potential and to start distributing help to the affected households,” he famous, including that a few of those that had been injured have been transferred to hospitals within the capital, Kabul, and to the adjoining Nangarhar province.
Simply earlier than midnight on Sunday, a shallow magnitude 6 earthquake struck jap Afghanistan – one of many deadliest the nation has skilled.
The mountainous terrain is making rescue work tough, with volunteers unable to succeed in remoted areas alongside the Pakistani border, the place largely mud-brick properties have been destroyed.
In keeping with Ehsan, gaining automobile entry on the slim mountainous roads has been the principle impediment for aid work.
‘Extraordinarily difficult’
In a situational replace, the World Well being Group (WHO) reiterated that the destruction of roads and the distant areas of many villages “severely impede the supply of help”.
“The pre-earthquake fragility of the well being system means native capability is overwhelmed, creating complete dependence on exterior actors,” stated the WHO, including that greater than 12,000 folks had been affected.
Homa Nader, the performing deputy head of delegation with the Worldwide Federation of Crimson Cross and Crimson Crescent Societies in Afghanistan, instructed Al Jazeera it has turn out to be “practically inconceivable” to proceed with the rescue effort as a result of destruction of roads.
“The challenges nonetheless stay. We had Andma, the catastrophe administration directive that got here in yesterday with heavy equipment to filter out a number of the highway and the rubble to have the ability to help with entry in order that humanitarian actors just like the Afghan Crimson Crescent Society can go and function search and rescue operations, however sadly, it’s extraordinarily difficult,” Nader stated.
She added that whereas they watch for a full incident report from the organisation, it’s “completely doubtless that these [death toll] numbers would dramatically improve as a result of we’re not attending to essentially the most distant villages as of but”.
Afghanistan has skilled devastating earthquakes previously as a consequence of its location on the assembly level the place the Indian and Eurasian plates converge.
The deadliest earthquake befell in October 2023, which killed greater than 2,000 folks in Herat province.