De@th toll in Afghanistan earthquake rises to 800 with 2,500 people injured

At least 800 people have been k!lled and at least 2,800 injured after an earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan.

Initially, it was reported that 622 people had di£d but the de@th toll keeps rising as more bodies are discovered.

The US Geological Survey says a magnitude 6 earthquake struck just before midnight local time in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan.

Authorities who spoke on Monday, September 1, called it one of Afghanistan’s worst earthquakes.

Homes made of mud and wood collapsed as helicopters were sent in to evacuate the injured.

Helicopters ferried the wounded to hospital after they were plucked from the rubble of homes being combed for survivors.

Sadiqullah, who lives in the Maza Dara area of Nurgal, says he was woken up by a deep boom that sounded like a big storm approaching.

He said he ran to where his children were sleeping and rescued three of them. He was about to return to grab the rest of his family when the roof fell on top of him.

“I was half-buried and unable to get out,” he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press from Nangarhar Regional Hospital.

“My wife and two sons are de@d and my father is injured and in hospital with me. We were trapped for three to four hours until people from other areas arrived and pulled me out.”

It felt like the whole mountain was shaking, he said.

There are reports that aftershocks were felt in neighbouring Pakistan and as far away as India.

The disaster is set to further stretch the resources of the war-torn nation’s Taliban administration, already grappling with humanitarian crises, from a sharp drop in aid to the pushback of hundreds of thousands of Afghans by neighbouring countries.

Sharafat Zaman, the spokesperson for the health ministry in Kabul, called for international aid to tackle the devastation from the quake of magnitude 6 that struck around midnight, at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).

“We need it because here lots of people lost their lives and houses,” he told Reuters.

The quake k!lled 812 people in the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar, said administration spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

Rescuers were battling to reach remote mountainous areas cut off from mobile networks along the Pakistani border, where mudbrick homes dotting the slopes collapsed in the quake.

“All our … teams have been mobilised to accelerate assistance, so that comprehensive and full support can be provided,” said health ministry spokesperson Abdul Maten Qanee, citing efforts in areas from security to food and health.