Scramble for survivors as Afghan earthquake death toll passes 1,400

A powerful earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan at the weekend killed more 1,400 and injured 3,000 others, the Taliban government said Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest to hit the country in decades.

The casualty toll has mounted steadily since the 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit late Sunday night, devastating remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan.

Chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X Tuesday that 1,411 people were killed and 3,124 people were injured in the hard-hit province of Kunar alone.

Another dozen people were killed and hundreds injured in neighbouring Nangarhar province.

The earthquake could impact "hundreds of thousands", said United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte.

Rescuers were still desperately searching Tuesday for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened in Kunar.

Emergency "operations continued throughout the night", the head of the Kunar Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told AFP.

He said there were "still injured people left in the distant villages" in need of evacuation to hospitals.

Villagers joined the rescue efforts, using their bare hands to clear debris from mud and stone homes built into steep valleys.

Obaidullah Stoman, 26, who travelled to the village of Wadir to search for a friend, was overwhelmed by the level of destruction.

"I'm searching here, but I didn't see him. It was very difficult for me to see the conditions here," he told AFP.

"There is only rubble left."

The dead, including children, were wrapped in white shrouds by villagers who prayed over their bodies before burying them.

Some of the hardest-hit villages remain inaccessible due to blocked roads, the UN migration agency told AFP.

The earthquake epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the US Geological Survey, which said it struck just eight kilometres below the Earth's surface.

Such relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in low-rise, mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.

After decades of conflict, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, facing a protracted humanitarian crisis and the influx of millions of Afghans forced back to the country by neighbours Pakistan and Iran in recent years.

Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, foreign aid to the country has been slashed, undermining the already impoverished nation's ability to respond to disasters.

The United States was the largest aid donor until early 2025, when all but a sliver of funds were cancelled after President Donald Trump took office.

In June, the United Nations said it was drastically scaling back its global humanitarian aid plans due to the "deepest funding cuts ever".

On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement the organisation was working with authorities to "swiftly assess needs, provide emergency assistance and stand ready to mobilise additional support", and announced an initial $5 million.

- 'Whole house collapsed' -

Many of those living in the quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans who have returned to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years.

Helicopters shuttled the injured from the remote village of Wadir in Nurgal district to hospitals in the nearest city, Jalalabad.

Fourteen-year-old Akhlaq was injured and evacuated to the hospital, but five members of his family were killed when the earthquake shook Nurgal.

"Our whole house collapsed, my brothers and father were all buried. Only I survived and made it out," he told AFP. "Then I heard my father's voice and I managed to rescue him."

"There are victims who are still under the rubble, but there is nobody to help them and pull them out."

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.

In October 2023, western Herat province was devastated by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.

A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.