An Afghan girl is carrying a mattress given after an earthquake in the village of Gayan, Paktika Province, Afghanistan, on Friday. A powerful earthquake struck a steep, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, crushing stone houses and mud bricks in the country’s deadliest earthquake in two decades, the agency reported. state news. (Ebrahim Nooroozi, Associated Press)
Estimated reading time: 5-6 minutes
GAYAN, Afghanistan – When the earth was lifted by last week’s earthquake in Afghanistan, Nahim Gul’s stone and mud house collapsed on top of him.
He swept through the rubble in the darkness of dawn, drowning in dust as he searched for his father and two sisters. He does not know how many hours of excavation passed before he could glimpse their bodies beneath the ruins. They were dead.
Now, days after a 6-magnitude earthquake devastated a remote region of southeastern Afghanistan and killed at least 1,150 people according to authorities’ estimates, Gul sees destruction everywhere and scarce aid . Her niece and nephew also died in the quake, crushed by the walls of her home.
The United Nations has put the death toll at 770, but warned it could rise further. Any figure would make the earthquake in Afghanistan the deadliest in two decades.
“I don’t know what will happen to us or how we should restart our lives,” Gul told the Associated Press on Sunday, his hands bruised and his shoulder injured. “We have no money to rebuild.”
It is a fear shared among thousands of people in impoverished villages where the fury of the earthquake has fallen hardest: in Paktika and Khost provinces, along the rugged mountains that lie on the country’s border with Pakistan.
Those who barely passed have lost everything. Many have not yet been visited by aid groups and authorities, who are struggling to reach the affected area by roads with plots, some facts impassable due to landslides and damage.
Aware of their limitations, the Taliban with cash problems have called for foreign aid and on Saturday called on Washington to thaw billions of dollars in Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves. The United Nations and a number of international aid groups and countries have mobilized to send aid.
A man left his damaged house on Friday after an earthquake in the village of Gayan in Paktika province, Afghanistan. A powerful earthquake struck a steep, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, crushing stone houses and mud bricks in the country’s deadliest earthquake in two decades, the agency reported. state news. (Photo: Ebrahim Nooroozi, Associated Press)
China on Saturday pledged nearly $ 7.5 million in emergency humanitarian aid, joining nations such as Iran, Pakistan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to send a plane laden with tents, towels, beds and other much-needed supplies in the area affected by the earthquake.
UN Deputy Special Representative Ramiz Alakbarov on Saturday toured the heavily affected Paktika province to assess the damage and distribute food, medicine and tents. United Nations helicopters and trucks loaded with bread, flour, rice and blankets have reached the affected areas.
“Yesterday’s visit reaffirmed to me both the extreme suffering of the people in Afghanistan and their tremendous resolution in the face of great adversity,” Alakbarov said, calling for the repair of water pipes, roads and lines. damaged communication in the area.
Without support, he added, Afghans “will continue to face unnecessary and unimaginable difficulties.”
But relief efforts remain uneven and limited due to funding and access limitations. The Taliban, who took power last August from a government backed for 20 years by a US-led military coalition, seems overwhelmed by the logistical complexity of issues such as the removal of rubble in what is being set up as an important test of his ability to govern.
The villagers have dug up their dead loved ones with their bare hands, buried them in mass graves and slept in the woods despite the rain. About 800 families live outdoors, according to the UN humanitarian coordination organization OCHA.
Gul received a tent and blankets from a local charity in Gayan District, but he and his surviving relatives have had to fend for themselves. Terrified as the earth still resonates with aftershocks like the one on Friday that claimed five more lives, he said his children in Gayan refuse to enter the house.
The quake was the latest calamity to shake Afghanistan, which has suffered a terrible economic crisis since the Taliban took control of the country as the US and its NATO allies withdrew their forces. Foreign aid, a mainstay of Afghanistan’s economy for decades, came to a halt virtually overnight.
World governments have accumulated sanctions, stopped bank transfers and paralyzed trade, refusing to recognize the Taliban government. The Biden administration cut the Taliban’s access to $ 7 billion in foreign exchange reserves in the United States.
An Afghan boy is in front of a makeshift shelter after an earthquake in the village of Gayan in Paktika province, Afghanistan, on Friday. A powerful earthquake struck a steep, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, crushing stone houses and mud bricks in the country’s deadliest earthquake in two decades, the agency reported. state news. (Photo: Ebrahim Nooroozi, Associated Press)
While visiting the site of the disaster, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi urged the White House to release the funds “at a time when Afghanistan is in a state of earthquakes and floods” and lift banking restrictions so that charities can offer help more easily.
Western donors have stopped long-term assistance as they call for the Taliban to allow a more inclusive rule and respect human rights. Former insurgents have resisted pressure, imposing restrictions on the freedoms of women and girls who remember their first time in power in the late 1990s.
Now, about half of the country’s 39 million people face levels of food insecurity that threaten their lives due to poverty. Most civil servants, including doctors, nurses and teachers, have not been paid for months.
UN agencies and other remaining organizations have struggled to keep Afghanistan on the brink of starvation with a humanitarian program that has fed millions and kept the medical system afloat. But with international donors lagging behind, UN agencies are facing a $ 3 billion funding shortfall this year.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization said it was stepping up surveillance of infectious diseases in areas affected by the Afghanistan earthquake. Afghanistan is one of the two remaining endemic polio countries in the world.
Trumped by the war and impoverished long before the Taliban took power, remote areas affected by last Wednesday’s earthquake are especially ill-equipped to deal with it.
Some local businessmen have taken action. The Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Investment said Sunday it had raised more than $ 1.5 million for Pakitka and Khost provinces.
However, for those whose homes have been destroyed, help may not be enough.
“We have nothing left,” Gul said.
×
Pictures
Related stories
Most recent stories in the world
Ebrahim Noroozi and Rahim Faiez