KABUL, June 24 (Reuters) – Afghanistan lacks medical supplies to treat the wounded in an earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people this week, a senior official said, as a retaliation on Friday killed five more.
Earlier, authorities ended the search in the remote mountains of the southeast for survivors of the magnitude 6.1 earthquake that erupted early Wednesday near the border with Pakistan, about 160 km (100 miles) south. -is from Kabul, the capital.
Friday’s aftershock, almost exactly in the same place, was of magnitude 4.3, the U.S. Geological Survey said. A health ministry official said it killed five people, but there was no immediate word on the extent of the new damage and injuries.
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A total of 1,036 people were confirmed dead, the United Nations said Friday.
About 2,000 people were injured and 10,000 houses were partially or completely destroyed in Wednesday’s quake, Afghanistan’s disaster ministry spokesman Mohammad Nassim Haqqani told Reuters.
“The health ministry does not have enough medicines,” he said. “We need medical help and other needs because it’s a big disaster.”
The epicenter of the quake was in a region of arid mountains dotted with small settlements that were often the scene of clashes during Afghanistan’s decades of war.
Poor communications and only very basic roads have hampered relief efforts in a country struggling with a humanitarian crisis that abruptly deteriorated after the Taliban took over last August when US-led international forces withdrew. .
TALIBAN TEST
The disaster is a major test for hard-line Islamist rulers, who have been largely isolated, rejected by many for human rights concerns and sidelined from much direct international aid because of sanctions.
Bibi Hawa and her daughter Safia from the area affected by the Barmal earthquake, receive treatment in a hospital ward in Sharana, Afghanistan, on June 24, 2022. Bibi Hawa claims to have lost 18 of her relatives in the recent earthquake. REUTERS / Ali Khara
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On Thursday, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates said they planned to send aid. Pakistan’s supplies have already crossed the border.
India, which has had relations with the Taliban, said it had sent 27 tonnes of supplies on two flights to be delivered to international aid agencies.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has deployed tons of supplies and expert staff to support the relief effort, he said.
“Four decades of conflict and instability in Afghanistan have left millions on the brink of starvation and famine,” its spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said on Friday.
Another UN body, the World Health Organization, has also warned that the disaster could increase the risk of cholera developing in Afghanistan.
Some 500,000 people were already suffering from diarrheal disease in May, one of the main symptoms of cholera, said Dr. Dapeng Luo, his representative in Afghanistan.
Speaking ahead of Friday’s aftershock, disaster manager Haqqani said the search for survivors had been canceled about 48 hours after the quake.
“The search operation is over,” he said, but did not explain why. Elsewhere, people have been pulled alive from the rubble of earthquakes after considerably longer periods.
Much of South Asia is seismically active because a tectonic plate known as the Indian plate is pushing north toward the Eurasian plate.
In 2015, an earthquake struck the remote northeastern Afghanistan and killed several hundred people in Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan.
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Report by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul; Additional report by Emma Farge in Geneva; Written by Alasdair Pal; Editing by Robert Birsel, Clarence Fernandez and Bill Berkrot
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