After a significant earthquake rocked eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 1,000 people, the Taliban made an appeal for international assistance.
At least 2,000 homes and hundreds of communities were demolished by the 6.1-magnitude earthquake, which was the deadliest to hit the nation in 20 years.
The earthquake that occurred Tuesday night in the region of Paktika harmed almost 1,500 people.
Haibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban, urged international NGOs to “spare no effort” to aid those impacted by “this enormous catastrophe.”
After the shocks, homes in the eastern Pakitka region were reduced to rubble, and bodies covered in blankets were lying on the ground.
The death toll is anticipated to increase further, according to the United Nations’ humanitarian organization, which is rushing to provide food aid, emergency shelter, and trauma care on the scene.
After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last year, the international community essentially withdrew, which will probably make any relief operations for this 38 million-person nation more difficult.
The Taliban, who took control of the nation in August and are cut off from much outside support due to sanctions, may face a significant challenge mounting a rescue effort.
Victims were seen being loaded into helicopters in the Paktika province, which is close to the Pakistani border, in order to be flown out of the area.
Images from the province that were widely shared online showed stone houses that had been wrecked, with locals rummaging through clay bricks and other debris.
In addition to people lying on gurneys, Bakhtar tweeted video of a resident receiving IV fluids from a plastic chair outside his home’s ruins.
Recent floods in numerous areas, which the disaster agency reported had killed 11, injured 50, and blocked sections of highway, has made things more difficult for Afghan officials.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGC), the earthquake occurred around 27 miles from the city of Khost, close to the Pakistani border.
In its initial response bulletin, the UN Office for the Conjunction of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that aid organizations were getting ready to help impacted families in the provinces of Paktika and Khost in coordination with the Taliban leadership.
Emergency trauma treatment, non-food items, food assistance, and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) help are among the immediate needs that have been identified, according to OCHA.
“Emergency shelter is an essential necessity due to the unseasonably heavy rainfall and cold.”
According to the news source, a medical team has been despatched to Gayan district, and the Afghan defense ministry has sent five helicopters to Paktika province to aid with medical evacuations.
According to OCHA, despite continuous search and rescue operations being hampered by severe rain and wind, helicopters were allegedly unable to land this afternoon.
As long as search and rescue efforts are ongoing, more casualties are anticipated.
Humanitarian search and rescue teams are prepared to deploy if needed and are on standby.
According to OCHA, the UN agency for children, UNICEF, has also sent numerous mobile health and nutrition teams to Spera district in Khost province and Barmal district in Paktika province, as well as at least 12 teams of health workers, to Gayan.
‘Strong and long jolts,’ a Kabul, Afghanistan, resident wrote on the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre website (EMSC).
A resident of Peshawar, a city in northwest Pakistan, said, “It was strong.”
According to Salahuddin Ayubi, an official with the interior ministry, the majority of the confirmed fatalities occurred in Paktika, where 255 initial fatalities and more than 200 injuries were reported.
At his weekly audience at the Vatican, Pope Francis prayed for the victims.
“I convey my sympathy to the injured and others who were impacted by the earthquake,” he said.
The leader of the Catholic Church worldwide remarked, “And I pray in especially for those who have lost their lives and their families.”
“I hope that with everyone’s aid, the dear Afghan people’s suffering can be lessened.”
He reported that 25 fatalities and 90 hospitalizations had occurred in the province of Khost.
Since some of the settlements were in isolated mountainous areas and it would take some time to gather information, he predicted that the death toll will grow.
According to a subsequent tweet from Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, “a major earthquake hit four districts of Paktika province, killing and injuring hundreds of our people and damaging dozens of buildings.”
To avert more devastation, we implore all relief organizations to dispatch personnel there right away.
Neighbouring The earthquake was recorded as having a magnitude of 6.1 in Pakistan. Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, and other areas of the eastern Punjab province experienced tremors.
According to the European Seismological Center (EMSC), 119 million people in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan felt the earthquake’s shocks over a distance of 310 miles.
No early reports of damage or casualties in Pakistan were available.
In a statement, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif expressed his condolences for the earthquake and promised that his country will aid the people of Afghanistan.
The tragedy occurs as U.S.-led international forces were leaving Afghanistan after 20 years of war, and as Afghanistan has been going through a severe economic crisis ever since the Taliban seized power in August.
Many governments have put restrictions on Afghanistan’s banking industry and reduced billions of dollars’ worth of development aid in response to the Taliban takeover.
The nation is still receiving humanitarian aid, and foreign organizations like the United Nations are active there.
Any assistance from international organizations would be welcome, according to a spokesman for the Afghan foreign ministry.
A tectonic plate known as the Indian plate is pushing against the Eurasian plate from the north, which is causing seismic activity across significant portions of south Asia.
In 2015, an earthquake in the far-flung northeast of Afghanistan killed hundreds of people there as well as in neighbouring northern Pakistan.
Around 1,000 people were killed in northern Afghanistan in a similar 6.1 earthquake in 2002.
And in 1998, a distant northeastern Afghanistan earthquake with a 6.1 magnitude and ensuing tremors killed at least 4,500 people.