A 6.3 magnitude earthquake has struck Afghanistan’s western province of Hera, following a series of deadly quakes that caused more than 4,000 deaths and injuries on Saturday.
There were no early details on casualties caused by the latest quake that occurred at a shallow depth at around 05:10 am local time (00:40 GMT) on Wednesday, with its epicenter put about 29 km north of Herat.
The office of Herat’s governor said some districts adjoining areas that had been completely flattened by earlier quakes had suffered “huge losses”.
The latest quake comes as rescue teams are still searching for those trapped under the debris following the three deadly earthquakes that rattled Herat and its surroundings on Saturday.
Local and national officials have given conflicting counts of the number of dead and injured from the previous earthquakes.
Afghan authorities on Wednesday significantly lowered the death toll from the weekend earhthquakes to around 1,000.
The Taliban government had originally said over 2,000 people had been killed in Saturday’s magnitude 6.3 quake, centred on rural communities northwest of Herat city.
Public Health Minister Qalandar Ebad attributed the confusion to the remoteness of the area and double reporting by agencies involved in the rescue effort.
“We have over 1,000 people martyred from the first incident,” Ebad told reporters in Kabul.
According to a statement by the UN Humanitarian Office all the homes in the Zindajan district in Herat were destroyed following the earlier quakes.
Images shared by aid and rescue teams on the ground showed massive heaps of debris and rubble after buildings collapsed, while people could be seen digging in the rubble to try to find survivors.
“The situation is worse than we imagined with people in devastated villages still desperately trying to rescue survivors from under the rubble with their bare hands,” Thamindri de Silva, national director at World Vision Afghanistan said.
Reinforcement teams from the capital Kabul had also arrived to help but there is only one hospital and it is “at full stretch with serious cases being transferred to other private facilities.”
Mark Calder, World Vision Afghanistan’s advocacy lead, said funding from the international community “has been inadequate.”
Lack of water is also a serious challenge, said Siddig Ibrahim, UNICEF Afghanistan’s Chief of Field Office, with women and children being the most disproportionately affected.
“Afghanistan is home to one of the world’s worst humanitarian and child rights crises,” he said. “The international community should not, and cannot, look away from children in Afghanistan, especially now, when help is needed most.”
Save the Children said the scale of the damage in Herat was “horrific” and anticipates the death toll will rise as bodies are pulled from the rubble.
“This is a crisis on top of a crisis,” said Save the Children’s Afghanistan director Arshad Malik. “Even before this disaster, Afghan children were already suffering from a devastating lack of food.”
Afghanistan has long been one of Asia’s poorest countries and has been ravaged by conflict for decades.
The Taliban seized power in August 2021, 20 years after their ouster by US troops – an event that saw many major aid groups and NGOs pull out and crucial aid programs halted.
After their withdrawal, Washington and its allies cut off international funding – crippling an economy already heavily dependent on aid.
Last week the World Bank warned that two thirds of Afghan families currently faced “significant challenges in maintaining their livelihoods” – making it harder for Afghans to recover from earthquakes.
“The earthquake has further exacerbated the situation of already vulnerable communities and upcoming harsh winter conditions spell disaster for the welfare of those that have become displaced, especially for women and children who are most at risk of exploitation and abuse in their displacement,” said International Rescue Committee (IRC) director Salma Ben Assia.
“Thousands are now without homes or shelter – they have lost everything,” added Malik from Save the Children.
“The international community cannot turn its backs on children and families in Herat who need urgent help.”
Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
The quake-hit Herat province, which is home to 1.9 million people, has also been hit by drought, affecting produce in an area renowned for top-quality abundant harvest.
