Asia-Pacific

Another earthquake hits western Afghanistan as official warns of ‘huge losses’

Disaster follows a series of deadly quakes over the weekend which left more than 2,000 dead and entire villages flattened

Residents digging through rubble in the Herat province on Tuesday, before the latest earthquake. Photograph: Victor J Blue/The New York Times

Wed Oct 11 2023 - 07:20

Another strong earthquake has shaken part of western Afghanistan. It followed an earthquake at the weekend which killed more than 2,000 people and flattened whole villages.

The latest magnitude 6.3 earthquake was about28km outside Herat, the capital of Herat province, and 10km deep, according to the US Geological Survey.

It triggered a landslide that blocked the main road between Herat and Torghundi, information ministry spokesman Abdul Wahid Rayan said.

The aid group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said the Herat regional hospital had received 117 people who were injured in Wednesday’s earthquake. The group said it had sent additional medical supplies to the hospital and was setting up four more medical tents at the facility.

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“Our teams are assisting in triaging emergency cases and managing stabilised patients admitted in the medical tents,” MSF said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Wednesday’s earthquake also flattened all 700 homes in Chahak village, which was untouched by the tremors of previous days.

There were mounds of soil where dwellings used to be. But there were no deaths initially reported in Chahak because people had taken shelter in tents this week, fearing for their lives as tremors continued to hit Herat.

Villagers were distraught at the loss of their homes and livestock – often their only possessions – and worried about the coming harsh winter months. Some said they had never seen an earthquake before and wondered when the shaking of the ground would stop.

Many said they had no peace of mind inside the tents for fears the “ground will open and swallow us at any moment”.

A woman carries a tent in the Zinda Jan district, the area worst hit by the earthquakes. Photograph: Samiullah Popal/EPA

The epicentre of Saturday’s earthquake was about40km northwest of the provincial capital, and several aftershocks have been strong, including another of magnitude 6.3 on Saturday.

Taliban officials said more than 2,000 people had died across Herat after the earlier earthquakes. They subsequently said the earthquakes killed and injured thousands but did not give a breakdown of casualties.

Besides rubble and funerals after Saturday’s devastation, there is little left of the villages in the region’s dusty hills.

In Naib Rafi, a village that previously had about 2,500 residents, people said most survivors were men who were working outside when the earthquake struck. Survivors worked all day with diggers to dig long trenches for mass burials.

On a barren field in the district of Zinda Jan, a bulldozer removed mounds of earth to clear space for a long row of graves.

“It is very difficult to find a family member from a destroyed house and a few minutes to later bury him or her in a nearby grave, again under the ground,” said Mir Agha, from the city of Herat, who had joined hundreds of volunteers to help the locals.

Nearly 2,000 houses in 20 villages were destroyed, the Taliban said. The area hit by the earthquakes had one government-run hospital.

Earthquake survivors recounted the tremors which shattered their homes and lives as mass funerals were held in various villages in northwest Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Zinda Jan was the worst-affected area, with more than 1,300 people killed and nearly 500 people still reported missing.

He said UN satellite imagery also indicated extreme levels of destruction in the district of Injil.

“Our humanitarian colleagues warn that children are particularly vulnerable and have suffered severe psychological distress from the earthquake,” he said.

Neighbouring Pakistan was among the countries that had offered assistance but the delivery of its humanitarian aid had been on hold since Monday.

On Wednesday morning, the pledged supplies had yet to leave Pakistan. Authorities were waiting for “clearance” from the Taliban, two government officials in Islamabad said.

Ties between the two countries have come under pressure since Pakistan announced a deadline for undocumented migrants, including 1.7 million Afghans living illegally in the country, to leave before October 31st to avoid arrests and forced deportation. – AP

[ Afghanistan earthquake: Rescue efforts scaled back as villagers bury their dead ]

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