Earthquake aftermath, Afghanis begin rebuilding their lives

More than 1,400 people have been killed after a magnitude 6 earthquake struck Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, with survivors burying relatives in makeshift graves as aid workers struggle to reach remote mountain villages.

The midnight tremor, the country’s deadliest in years, flattened thousands of mud-brick homes and left more than 5,000 houses destroyed, officials from the Taliban administration said. Harsh weather and rugged terrain have hampered search and rescue efforts.

In the devastated village of Mazar Dara, 65-year-old farmer Mir Salam Khan buried his wife and three children under plastic sheets and wooden planks.

“We buried them with wooden planks and plastic sheets so the soil would not fall directly on the bodies,” he said.

“That was all we could do.”

Traditional burials involve wrapping the dead in shrouds and topping graves with cement slabs. But with supplies scarce, survivors have turned to scraps salvaged from the wreckage.

“We have never witnessed such an earthquake in history,” said Yunus Khan, 45, who lost five children among 12 relatives. Sitting among the rubble of his collapsed home, he said, “All belongings were lost, the children were martyred. It was such a quake that it gave no one a chance. With one jolt, the entire village was destroyed.”

Most families remain stranded among the ruins, sharing one tent between several households as rain lashes down.

“Last night it rained and we had no shelter,” Yunus added.

“Five or six families are in one tent, there are no supplies. Even the bodies lay out in the rain, waiting to be buried.”

In neighbouring Chapa Dara, livestock owner Namirullah, 30, said he joined 50 villagers digging through rubble with their bare hands.

“The martyrs are still trapped and the injured are so many,” he said.

“People have abandoned their homes and are living in cornfields and orchards, terrified as aftershocks come every few minutes.”

The Afghan defence ministry said the air force carried out 155 flights in two days, moving 1,900 people, including hundreds of wounded, and delivering 10,000 kilograms (22,000 pounds) of supplies.

Afghanistan, straddling the collision zone of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, has endured repeated earthquakes. A 2022 quake killed about 1,000 people. 

While successive shocks in Herat in 2023 flattened entire villages. Four smaller quakes rattled the country earlier this year.

Each new disaster deepens the struggles of a nation crippled by poverty, decades of war and declining international aid.

The United Nations estimates that half of Afghanistan’s 40 million people already required assistance before Sunday’s quake.

Two days later, Salam was still waiting for the bodies of two of his children to be recovered from the ruins.

“Two of my children are still under the rubble,” he said. “We can do nothing.”

Copied