Earthquake rescue teams battling to reach survivors in Afghanistan

Rescue teams are frantically moving to scope survivors pursuing the devastating earthquake successful eastbound Afghanistan that killed much than 1,400 people.

Countless victims are inactive trapped successful isolated areas mostly inaccessible to assistance workers, authorities warned connected Wednesday.

The magnitude 6.0 shallow quake struck the mountainous portion on the Pakistan borderline precocious connected Sunday, collapsing mud-brick homes connected sleeping families. Frightened by continuous aftershocks, residents person gathered successful unfastened areas oregon are desperately searching done rubble for missing loved ones.

Taliban authorities study the decease toll has climbed to astatine slightest 1,469, with much than 3,700 radical injured, marking 1 of Afghanistan’s deadliest earthquakes successful caller decades.

United Nations exile main Filippo Grandi stated connected X that “more than 500,000 people” successful eastbound Afghanistan person been affected by the catastrophe.

Kunar state recorded the highest fig of casualties, portion adjacent Nangarhar and Laghman provinces reported hundreds wounded and respective deaths.

Relief efforts are severely hampered arsenic aftershocks origin rockfalls, blocking entree to distant villages and forcing families to stay outdoors, fearing further structural collapses.

“Everyone is acrophobic and determination are galore aftershocks,” Awrangzeeb Noori, 35, told the AFP quality bureau from the colony of Darai Nur successful Nangarhar province. “We walk each time and nighttime successful the tract without shelter.”

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization announced an intensified exigency effect to code the “immense” needs, seeking $4m to present indispensable wellness interventions and grow mobile services and supplies.

“Every hr counts,” WHO exigency squad pb successful Afghanistan, Jamshed Tanoli, said successful a statement. “Hospitals are struggling, families are grieving and survivors person mislaid everything.”

Taliban authorities lawman spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said that antecedently unreachable areas had yet been accessed. “We cannot find the day for finishing the cognition successful each areas arsenic the country is precise mountainous and it is precise hard to scope each area.”

The Taliban government’s defence ministry has organised 155 chopper flights implicit 2 days, evacuating astir 2,000 injured radical and their relatives to determination hospitals.

Fitrat reported that a coordination campy has been established successful Khas Kunar district, with 2 further sites adjacent the epicentre “to oversee the transportation of the injured, the burial of the dead, and the rescue of survivors”.

Afghanistan regularly experiences earthquakes, with the state inactive recovering from erstwhile disasters. Western Herat state was ravaged successful October 2023 by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that killed much than 1,500 radical and damaged oregon destroyed astatine slightest 63,000 homes.