Afghanistan affects the earthquake in difficult to access. ‘Villages have been razed to the ground’

He had never felt his house vibrate so hard. RISHAD, 33, was lifted out of bed in the night from Sunday to Monday, he says “I went out of bed and ran to the courtyard, so that I would run less danger. Once outside I heard the children from the neighborhood cry, they were so shocked.”

In his hometown of Jalalabad, a large city in the east of Afghanistan, he then went through a chaotic night: the heavy earthquake with a force of 6.0, was followed by a series of trembling and after -shocks. According to Cute of the Taliban and the United Nations fell at least eight hundred dead in the affected provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar. That death toll will almost certainly increase. More than 2,500 people were injured.

In the region, “entire villages were buried,” Rishhad says by telephone NRC About the news that he came to Ore in the course of morning. The authorities let doctors and medicines fly in from other parts of Afghanistan, Sharafat Zaman, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, announced.

Defense deployed helicopters to reach the affected areas and evacuate victims, during the flights, rescue workers found that several places ‘with the ground were equaled’.

Rishad saw the helicopters pull over his house. The suburbs of Jalalabad are “only ten, fifteen kilometers away from the first affected villages in Kunar, but the main roads from the city were blocked by rubble.”

Zoom in

Hints Hutten

The earthquake struck a mountainous area. Certainly in Kunar, the population lives predominantly in rural small villages of Lemen Hutten. In recent days, the inhabitants had to deal with heavy rainfall, which weighed roads and made the traditional homes weaker. They were attacked by the natural disaster in the night.

In the province of Kunar that borders Pakistan, more than one hundred thousand Afghans have entered the country since spring – refugees and labor migrants who were deported by the neighboring country.

The roads were released on Monday afternoon. This makes it easier for care providers to work in the affected provinces, says Thamindri de Silva, director of the Humanitarian Organization World Vision in Afghanistan. According to her, NGOs will “also work together, also with those in power, to go into the area. Then a real image of the disaster and the required care” will arise.

On Monday, concerns about the treatment of wounded women. In Afghanistan, strict rules apply to the interaction between men and women; According to the BBC It is possible that women do not come to the hospital directly due to conservative standards, for example if they have to be brought by male family members. A strict separation also applies in healthcare. But, the Silva states, “that attitude comes in second place in emergency situations. I suspect that female healthcare staff will also have access to the affected areas and the victims. Certainly in this acute phase.”

That is also how it went in October 2023, when the west of the country was struck by a major earthquake. According to the United Nations, certainly two thousand people were killed in the province of Herat.

Dozens of international aid organizations and many more local organizations are active in Afghanistan, including in health care. They also often employ women – for whom they try to achieve an exceptional position of strict standards, also outside disaster scenarios.

Heavily equipment needed

For example, obstetrician Ashma Hassanzai (22) treats pregnant women every day from a small clinic in a suburb of Jalalabad, where on Monday morning “the first dozens of wounded” reported. On the phone she tells : “The nursing center has solid walls, so it was standing. But we only run a small medical post, without facilities for emergencies. We have cared for wounds, attached and held hands throughout the morning. Anyone who is heavier wounded or needs, for example, an X -ray, we have to forward.” Earthquake victims were sent from such small clinics to the regional hospital in Jalalabad on Monday.

Zoom in

The Taliban authorities in Kabul asked for international aid on Monday morning. They also did that in 2023, when the regime in Herat had to do with the first major ‘test’ as a government. This time, just like then, heavy equipment is needed for rubbing, and experts with experience in earthquake area, according to the Silva. On Monday afternoon, extra help was promised by the Afghanistan mission of the UN and by Japan. India also left know That humanitarian aid was sent to Afghanistan.

To share





Mail the editors