1 of 5 | Members of the Afghan Red Crescent are seen assisting a child, one of the victims of the earthquake that struck Kunar and Nangarhar provinces near the city of Jalalabad on Sunday. Photo by Afghan Red Crescent/ UPI | License Photo
Officials in Afghanistan confirmed that more than 1,400 people have been killed in an earthquake that struck the country over the weekend.
Deputy Spokesman of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Hamdullah Fitrat announced Tuesday that across several districts within its Kunar Province, the death toll has reached 1,411, while 3,124 people were injured and 5,412 houses were destroyed.
“Rescue operations continue across all affected areas today,” Fitrat posted to social media Tuesday. “In locations where helicopters could not land, dozens of commando forces were air-dropped to pull the injured from the rubble and move them to safer ground.”
The U.S. Geological Survey has reported the magnitude 6.0 earthquake’s epicenter that struck around midnight Sunday was approximately 17 miles east of the city of Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar Province.
Others were reported killed in Nangarhar Province, where around 8,000 houses were destroyed, but the death toll remains unclear.
Ministry of Public Health Public Relations Director Dr. Sharafat zaman Amar posted images of injured children to social media Tuesday from Nangarhar Provincial Hospital in Jalalabad who he said are “lying together on beds who have no parents or relatives, and they are enduring these harsh moments of life in pain, fatherless and motherless.”
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, or IFRC, Communications officer Mir Abdullah Rasikh posted to social media Tuesday from the Noorgal district of Kunar, where he stated that he was “Reporting directly from the epicenter, where aftershocks continue to shake the ground every 10 minutes.”
“The situation on the ground is quite critical,” said the acting Head of Delegation of IFRC Joy Singhal in an interview Sunday.
The U.N. Development agency, or UNDP, reported Monday it responded to Dewagal Valley in Kunar, where over 200 were killed, 500 were injured and many remained trapped.
“Homes and key infrastructure are destroyed,” it stated in an X post. “We’re working to meet urgent needs: shelter, water, food, medicines, livelihoods.”
The UNDP based in Afghanistan posted Tuesday that “Urgent support from the world is needed so people can recover and rebuild.”
The U.N. International Organization for Migration’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific further reported Tuesday that flash flooding caused by heavy rains have “swept through Nangarhar and Kunar, impacting over 400 families and damaging homes, roads, and farmland.”
