Afghanistan quake kills 1,000 people, deadliest in decades
Kabul, Jun 22: 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 toll may still rise.
Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6.1 temblor near the Pakistani border, but quakes of that strength can cause serious damage in an area where homes and other buildings are poorly constructed and landslides are common.
Experts put the depth at just 10 kilometers another factor that could lead to severe destruction.
The disaster posed a major test for the Taliban-led government, which seized power last year as the U.S. planned to pull out from the country and end its longest war, two decades after toppling the same insurgents in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Rescuers rushed to the area by helicopter Wednesday, but the response is likely to be complicated since many international aid agencies left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
Reaching rural areas even in the best circumstances remains difficult in Afghanistan, a landlocked nation just smaller than Texas with rutted mountain roadways that may now have sustained significant damage.
In light of those difficulties, a Taliban official asked for international help.
When such a big incident happens in any country, there is a need for help from other countries," said Sharafuddin Muslim.
"It is very difficult for us to be able to respond to this huge incident.
Neighbouring Pakistan's Meteorological Department said the quake's epicentre was in Afghanistan's Paktika province, some 50 kilometers southwest of the city of Khost.
Buildings were also damaged in Khost province, and tremors were felt some 375 kilometers away in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
Footage from Paktika showed men carrying people in blankets to waiting helicopters.
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.
Some images showed residents picking through clay bricks and other rubble from destroyed stone houses, some of whose roofs or walls had caved in.
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.
In most places in the world, an earthquake of that magnitude wouldn't inflict such extensive devastation, said Robert Sanders, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
But a quake's death toll more often comes down to geography, building quality and population density.
Because of the mountainous area, there are rockslides and landslides that we won't know about until later reporting. Older buildings are likely to crumble and fail, he said.
Due to how condensed the area is in that part of the world, we've seen in the past similar earthquakes deal significant damage.
The Taliban are still trying to reconstitute government ministries abandoned by staff loyal to its previous Western-backed government, and it was not clear how officials arrived at the casualty tolls reported by Bakhtar.
In Kabul, Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund convened an emergency meeting at the presidential palace to coordinate the relief effort, and Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, wrote on Twitter to urge aid agencies to send teams to the area.
The response is on its way, the U.N. resident coordinator in Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, wrote on Twitter.
That may prove difficult given the situation Afghanistan finds itself in today. 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 organisations 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, and reluctance on the part of aid organisations to put any money in the Taliban's coffers could make it difficult to fly in supplies and equipment.
The Afghan Red Crescent Society, however, sent some 4,000 blankets, 800 tents and 800 kitchen kits to the affected area, according to Bakhtar's director-general, Abdul Wahid Rayan.
The Italian medical aid group Emergency, which still operates in Afghanistan, said it sent seven ambulances and staff to the areas closest to the quake zone.
The fear is that the victims will increase further, also because many people could be trapped under collapsed buildings, said Stefano Sozza, country director for Emergency in Afghanistan.
This latest tragedy cannot but worsen further the condition of fragility and economic and social difficulties which Afghanistan has experienced for months.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif said his nation would provide help. At the Vatican, Pope Francis offered prayers for all those killed and injured and for the suffering of the dear Afghan population.
Some remote areas of Pakistan saw reports of damage to homes near the Afghan border, but it wasn't immediately clear if that was due to rain or the earthquake, said Taimoor Khan, a disaster management spokesperson in the area.
The European seismological agency, EMSC, said the earthquake's tremors were felt over 500 kilometers by 119 million people across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Mountainous Afghanistan and the larger region of South Asia along the Hindu Kush mountains has long been vulnerable to devastating earthquakes.
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Fact- checker Mohammed Zubair schools Uttarakhand CM over “PR call” to Tripura student’s family
New Delhi/Dehradun: Journalist and fact-checker Mohammed Zubair on Monday criticised Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami over what he described as a delayed response to the killing of Tripura student Anjel Chakma in Dehradun, calling the chief minister’s outreach a “PR call” after days of public outrage.
In a post on X, Zubair pointed out that Anjel Chakma was attacked on December 9 and died on December 26 after weeks of treatment. He noted that the incident was reported by local media and discussed on social media on the very day of the attack, while national media covered it from December 27 onwards. Zubair said widespread outrage persisted online for two to three days before the chief minister finally spoke to the victim’s family.
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“Finally Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami wakes up and decides to do a PR call,” Zubair wrote, questioning the timing of the response rather than the assurance itself.
Zubair’s remarks came shortly after the Uttarakhand Chief Minister’s Office said Dhami had spoken to Anjel’s father, Tarun Prasad Chakma, and assured strict action against those responsible. Dhami expressed condolences and said the culprits would be given the harshest punishment. The chief minister also said he had spoken to Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh regarding the case.
A video of Dhami speaking to the victim’s family on his phone was also shared later by ANI and other media outlets. Zubair made the tweet while replying to the video of X.
Anjel Chakma, a 24-year-old MBA student from Tripura, was allegedly assaulted by a group of youths in the Selakui area under Premnagar police station limits on December 9. Police said Anjel and his brother Michael were attacked with knives and blunt objects following an argument. Anjel suffered serious injuries and later died while undergoing treatment.
So far, five accused have been arrested, while one suspect, believed to have fled to Nepal, remains absconding. Uttarakhand Police have announced a reward for information leading to his arrest.
The killing triggered protests and candlelight marches in Tripura, particularly by members of the Tipra Indigenous Students Federation and other student bodies, who have demanded swift justice and highlighted concerns over repeated attacks on people from the Northeast in other states.
Political reactions have also followed, with Congress leaders linking the incident to what they describe as a climate of normalised hate. Against this backdrop, Zubair’s post has added to the debate by shifting focus to the timing and optics of the state government’s response, rather than its stated assurances alone.
