Afghanistan earthquake casualties top 4,000
Reuters :
The earthquakes that hit western Afghanistan on Saturday have killed or injured more than 4,000 people, officials said on Monday.
About 2,000 houses have been completely destroyed in the two 6.2-magnitude earthquakes, said the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA).
“So far, the statistics we have received regarding casualties are unfortunately exceeding 4,000 people.
According to our data, in about 20 villages, approximately 1,980 to 2,000 houses have completely collapsed,” Mullah Saiq, spokesman for ANDMA, said at a press conference in Kabul.
The earthquakes stuck Herat Province and neighboring areas on Saturday afternoon, with the first tremor occurring at around 11.10 local time (0640 GMT).
A total of more than 1,000 rescuers in 35 rescue teams from different institutions are carrying out relief efforts in the affected areas, said the spokesman.
Mohammad Hasan Akhund, Afghanistan’s acting prime minister, led a group of officials to visit the affected region in Herat Province on Monday.
China on Sunday provided the Afghan Red Crescent with 200,000 US dollars in cash as emergency humanitarian assistance to aid its rescue and disaster relief efforts.
People dug through the rubble of the quake in western Afghanistan for their few possessions but the material losses seemed unimportant.
Saturday’s 6.3 magnitude 6.3 quake killed and injured thousands when it levelled an untold number of homes in Herat province.
Picking through the rubble on Monday, Asadullah Khan paused to think about a future marred by grief.
Khan lost three daughters, his mother and his sister-in-law.
Five members of his uncle’s family have died.
His neighbours are grief-stricken, too.
“We have lost 23 people in this village,” Khan said.
The Taliban-appointed deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Abdul Ghani Baradar, and his team visited the quake-affected region on Monday to deliver “immediate relief assistance” and ensure “equitable and accurate distribution of aid,” authorities said.
Top United Nations officials also went to Zinda Jan to assess the extent of the damage.
In neighbouring Pakistan, the government held a special session to review aid for Afghanistan, including relief teams.
Afghanistan has few reliable statistics but a spokesman for Afghanistan’s national disaster authority, Janan Sayiq, told reporters in Kabul that about 4,000 people were killed or injured by the disaster.
He did not provide a breakdown, but the UN estimates that 1,023 people were killed and 1,663 people injured in 11 villages in Zinda Jan alone.
Nearly 2,000 houses in 20 villages were destroyed, according to the Taliban.
The area hit by the quake has just one government-run hospital. The epicentre was about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of the city of Herat, the provincial capital, the US Geological Survey said.
Several of the aftershocks have been strong, including one on Monday that again caused residents of the city to rush out of their homes.
More than 35 teams from the military and nonprofit groups are involved in rescue efforts, said Sayiq, the disaster authority spokesperson.
The fast-approaching winter, combined with the new disaster, is likely to exacerbate Afghanistan’s existing challenges and make it even harder for people to meet their basic needs, like adequate shelter, food and medicine, aid groups warn.