Tuesday tremor ‘was felt in the same areas that were affected in Kunar in the first earthquake,’ said disaster management spokesman Ehsuanullah Ehsan
A new 5.2 magnitude earthquake shared the east of Tuesday (2), in a region that still fights the consequences of the powerful earthquake last weekend, which left more than 1,400 dead and 3,000 injured. The epicenter of the new tremor was close to where the magnitude 6.0 earthquake was recorded last Sunday, which devastated remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with the. Tuesday’s earthquake “was felt in the same areas that were affected in [a província de] Kunar in the first earthquake, ”disaster management spokesman at the province told Ehsuanullah Ehsan.
“These replicas are constant, but have not yet caused any victim,” added Ehsan. The tremor was reported on Tuesday night (local time) by the US geological service. The number of victims of the Sunday night earthquake has been constantly increasing since the earthquake in remote areas of the mountainous provinces of Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghman. Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday that only in Kunar, the hardest affected area, 1,411 people died and 3,124 were injured. At least ten people died and hundreds were injured in the neighboring Nangarhar.
Rescue teams continued desperately seeking survivors amid the rubble of more than 5,000 homes collapsed. “Emergency operations continued all night,” Ehsan told AFP. The effects of the earthquake and its replicas could affect “hundreds of thousands” of people, warned Indrika Ratwatte, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan. “There is no doubt that the number of victims will be very exponential.”
Residents of some villages joined the rescue efforts, using their hands to remove the rubble from clay and stone houses, built in steep valleys. Obaidullah Stoman, 26, who went to Wadir’s village looking for a friend, was impressed by the level of destruction. “I’m looking for him, but I didn’t find him. It was very difficult for me to see the conditions of the place,” he told AFP.
Elsewhere, families buried bodies, some of them children, wrapped in white shrouds, following the Muslim rite. The Laghman region also reported dozens of injuries, said spokesman Taliban. The epicenter of the earthquake was located 27 kilometers from Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, and at a depth of just eight kilometers.
Earthquakes near the surface can cause more damage, especially since most Afghan lives in adobe houses, vulnerable to collapse. Given the tragedy, the UN Global Emergency Response Fund will mobilize $ 5 million ($ 27.1 million in the current price) in help, UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced on Monday.
“Immediate Assistance”
The European Union (EU) announced the sending this week of 130 tons of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan to “immediate and essential assistance to the populations of the affected areas,” said Hadja Lahbib, a European commissioner in charge of humanitarian aid in a statement released on Tuesday. The EU also plans to allocate 1 million euros (R $ 6.3 million) in emergency aid to international organizations that are already on site.
After decades of conflict, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and faces a prolonged humanitarian crisis and the arrival of millions of forced citizens to return to the country by neighbors Pakistan and Iran in recent years. Foreign assistance to the country was drastically reduced, undermining its ability to respond to disasters.
The United States were the largest donor until the beginning of 2025, when, after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, almost all financing was canceled. The EU has been filling this vacuum. The country suffers frequent earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
In 2023, two years after the return of the Taliban to power, a large earthquake hit the Herat region across Afghanistan on the border with Iran. More than 1,500 people lost their lives and more than 63,000 houses were destroyed by the magnitude earthquake 6.3.
*With information from AFP
Posted by Fernando Dias
