A major earthquake has hit eastern
Afghanistan with the Taliban
government's interior ministry saying at
least 600 people have been killed. The
magnitude 6.0 quake struck along the
border of the provinces of Nangaha and
Kuna on Sunday night. The epicenter is
in a remote mountainous area making
relief operations extremely difficult.
Some of the injured have been
helicoptered to safety. Roads to the
worst hit area are said to have been
blocked by landslides. Officials say
entire villages have been destroyed.
While the Taliban is appealing for
urgent help from international aid
organizations. Our South Asia
correspondent Yugita Limai is in
Afghanistan's capital from where she
gave us this update. Here in Kabul, we
were jolted awake by the earthquake uh
just before midnight last night and the
shaking went on for several seconds. We
know of course now that it was a 6.0
zero magnitude earthquake which struck
Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province
which is roughly a 3 to fourhour drive
uh from here. Uh we have been told from
several sources and from the Taliban
government as well that there is
large-scale destruction in the area. The
Taliban government is saying that
they've heard that there are villages
that have been completely destroyed and
that masses of people are feared trapped
under the rubble. But this is
mountainous terrain. It's extremely
challenging to reach even in the best of
times. So that's really hampering rescue
and relief operations. We've been told
that the road going to the epicenter has
actually been blocked because of a
landslide. We know that the Taliban
government is operating helicopters to
try to get uh people out of there. But
the scale of the earthquake, I think the
scale of the impact in the dead, it will
be a while before we can truly get a
sense of that. Uh this region uh you
know again mountainous terrain very very
difficult to access. So any kind of
rescue operations are going to be
extremely slowm moving and further
what's happened is literally through the
night and early into this morning we've
had more aftershocks uh as well. Uh the
earthquake is hitting Afghanistan at a
time when this country is already
grappling with severe drought in more
than half of its provinces and it's
experiencing what the UN describes as an
unprecedented crisis of hunger. Uh the
biggest medical facility close to the
epicenter of the earthquake is the
Jalalabad Regional Hospital in the
Nangar Province. Uh and we've been there
last year and even then when it wasn't
dealing with the disaster, it was
completely overstretched. More than a
thousand people just waiting in the
complex to try to see a doctor to try to
get some kind of treatment. It is really
going to struggle to cope with hundreds
more who are being brought in injured
because of the earthquake. Yugai there
with me is our news correspondent Aruna
Ayena. Aruna just tell us the latest in
terms of the information that we're
getting.
>> Yeah. So the Taliban interior ministry
has updated its figures saying that over
600 people have been killed in the Kunar
region. That's the east in Afghanistan.
There's more deaths also in the um
region of Nangahar province which is
just to the south of Kuna. It was a six
magnitude earthquake um and it was 8
kilometers deep um which is actually
quite a shallow earthquake and it struck
in the country's mountainous re eastern
region um about 27 kilometers away from
Islamabad um and uh around 140
kilometers from the capital Kbal
>> and the history of the earthquakes in
this area.
>> Yeah. Um Afghanistan is prone to
earthquakes um particularly in the Hindu
Kush um mountain range which is where
the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates
meet. Um a series of earthquakes last
year in the west of the country killed
around 1,000 people. It shows the
vulnerability um of Afghanistan to
earthquake activity. Also the
infrastructure in the in the country
doesn't help the many of the houses are
made of earn materials which means that
they're really fragile and are
vulnerable. They can collapse um on top
of people um in earthquake situations.
Um an earthquake in struck hat in um
2023
um followed by strong um aftershocks.
There was also a big earthquake in 2022
in coast which killed around a thousand
people causing widespread damage. And
now under the Taliban government, how
difficult is it um for them or any
external help to get to the people
affected here?
>> Well, this is a very remote mountainous
um region um very narrow road, so it's
hampering rescue activities. Also,
there's been a lot of landslides in the
area in the last couple of days. Um the
Taliban government has urged um help
from international organizations. Um but
the disaster will stretch the Afghan
government. Um it's already grappling
with humanitarian crises in the country.
There's also been a sharp drop in aid to
that country. So all these factors
coming together really doesn't help the
Afghan people who are really suffering
um in this current crisis.
>> Yeah. And there's a complex situation,
isn't there, around how much
international aid or support the Taliban
regime gets. Now I don't know whether we
know as yet the exact situation on the
ground here. This earthquake obviously
has only just happened. In terms of how
much international help is likely to
come in and from where.
>> Yeah. I mean many countries pulled back
on their aid to um the Taliban regime um
following you know the the the crisis in
Afghanistan in the last couple of years.
So it's been already the the the country
was grappling with that. the Taliban has
been, you know, kind of installed only
in the last couple of years. So, the
problems now will be how can they um
elicit those aid um requests that
they're asking for now and how willing
are other governments going to be to
provide aid to that country. Aruna,
thank you very much indeed.