Powerful quake in Afghanistan kills at least 1,000 people

A powerful earthquake struck a rural, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, killing 1,000 people and injuring 1,500 more in one of the deadliest quakes in decades, the state-run news agency reported. Officials warned that the already grim death toll may still rise.

Information remained scarce on the magnitude-6.1 temblor that damaged buildings in Khost and Paktika provinces. Rescue efforts are likely to be complicated since many international aid agencies left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover of the country last year and the chaotic withdrawal of the U.S. military from the longest war in its history.

The death toll given by the Bakhtar News Agency was equal to that of a quake in 2002 in northern Afghanistan. Those are the deadliest since 1998, when a 6.1-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tremors in Afghanistan's remote northeast killed at least 4,500 people.

Neighbouring Pakistan's Meteorological Department said the quake's epicentre was in Paktika, just near the border and some 50 kilometres southwest of the city of Khost.

Footage from Paktika near the Pakistan border showed victims being carried into helicopters to be airlifted from the area. Others were treated on the ground. One resident could be seen receiving IV fluids while sitting in a plastic chair outside the rubble of his home and still more were sprawled on gurneys. Other images showed residents picking through clay bricks and other rubble from destroyed stone houses.

Afghan emergency official Sharafuddin Muslim gave the death toll in a news conference Wednesday. Earlier, Bakhtar's director general, Abdul Wahid Rayan, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses have been destroyed in Paktika and dozens of people are believed trapped under the rubble.

In a rare move, the Taliban's supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzadah, who almost never appears in public, pleaded with the international community and humanitarian organizations "to help the Afghan people affected by this great tragedy and to spare no effort."

But in a sign of the muddled workings between the Taliban and the rest of the world, the United Nations resident co-ordinator in Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, said the Taliban had not formally requested that the UN mobilize international search-and-rescue teams or obtain equipment from neighbouring countries to supplement the few dozen ambulances and several helicopters sent in by Afghan authorities. Still, officials from multiple UN agencies said the Taliban were giving them full access to the area.

Humanitarian agencies still operating in the country, including UNICEF, rushed supplies to the quake-stricken areas. And Pakistan said it would send food, tents, blankets and other essentials.

Obtaining more direct international help may be more difficult: Many countries, including the U.S., funnel humanitarian aid to Afghanistan through the UN and other such organizations to avoid putting money in the Taliban's hands.

The quake "will only add to the immense humanitarian needs in Afghanistan, and it really has to be all hands on deck to make sure that we really limit the suffering that families, that women and children are already going through," said Shelley Thakral, spokesperson for the the UN World Food Program in Kabul.

After the Taliban swept across the country in 2021, the U.S. military and its allies fell back to Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport and later withdrew completely. Many international humanitarian organizations followed suit because of concerns about security and the Taliban's poor human rights record.

In the time since, the Taliban has worked with Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on restarting airport operations in Kabul and across the country — but nearly all international carriers still avoid the country.

The Afghan Red Crescent Society, however, sent 4,000 blankets, 800 tents and 800 kitchen kits to the affected area, according to Rayan.