KABUL, Oct 8 (Portal) – More than 2,400 people have died in earthquakes in Afghanistan, the Taliban government said on Sunday. The deadliest tremors hit the earthquake-prone mountainous region in years.
Saturday’s quake in the west of the country struck 35 km (20 miles) northwest of the city of Herat with a magnitude of 6.3, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.
They were among the deadliest earthquakes worldwide this year, after earthquakes in Turkey and Syria in February killed an estimated 50,000 people.
Janan Sayeeq, spokesman for the disaster ministry, said in a message to Portal that the death toll had risen to 2,445, but he revised the number of injured to “more than 2,000.” He had previously said that 9,240 people had been injured.
Sayeeq also said 1,320 houses were damaged or destroyed. The death toll rose to 500 from 500 previously reported by the Red Crescent on Sunday.
Ten rescue teams were in the area that borders Iran, Sayeeq said at a news conference.
More than 200 dead people have been taken to various hospitals, said a Herat health ministry official who identified himself as Dr. Danish said, adding that most of them were women and children.
The bodies were “taken to multiple locations – military bases, hospitals,” Danish said.
Beds were set up outside the main hospital in Herat to accommodate a flood of victims, photos on social media showed.
Food, drinking water, medicine, clothing and tents are urgently needed for rescue and assistance, said Suhail Shaheen, the head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, in a message to the media.
Photos on social media showed that Herat’s medieval minarets were partially damaged, with cracks visible and tiles falling off.
Surrounded by mountains, Afghanistan has experienced major earthquakes in the past, many of them in the rugged Hindu Kush region bordering Pakistan.
The death toll often rises as information comes in from more remote parts of a country where decades of war have left infrastructure in ruins and relief and rescue operations difficult to organize.
Afghanistan’s health system, which relies almost entirely on foreign aid, has suffered crippling cuts in the two years since the Taliban took power, and much of the international aid that formed the backbone of the economy has stopped.
Diplomats and aid officials say concerns about Taliban restrictions on women and competing global humanitarian crises are causing donors to withdraw financial support. The Islamist government has ordered most Afghan female aid workers not to work, with exceptions in the health and education sectors.
In August, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said it would likely end its financial support to 25 Afghan hospitals due to funding constraints. It was not immediately clear whether Herat Hospital was on that list.
The quakes caused panic in Herat, said resident Naseema.
“People have left their houses, we are all on the streets,” she wrote in a text message to Portal on Saturday, adding that the city was feeling aftershocks.
There are a total of 202 public health facilities in Herat province, including the largest regional hospital where 500 injured people were admitted, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report on Sunday.
The vast majority of facilities are smaller basic health centers and logistical challenges hampered operations, particularly in remote areas, WHO said.
“While search and rescue operations are ongoing, victims in these areas have not yet been fully identified,” it said.
Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul; Additional reporting by Ariba Shahid and Gibran Peshimam in Karachi; Edited by William Mallard and Sanjeev Miglani
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.
Acquire license rights, opens new tab