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Gayan, Afghanistan — Aftershocks killed more on Friday and threatened to bring more misery to the eastern part of Afghanistan from a powerful quake that state media said killed 1,150 people this week.
Of the magnitude 6 Wednesday deaths, the quake has 121 children, but the number is expected to increase, said Mohammed Ayoya, UNICEF’s Afghanistan representative. He said nearly 70 children were injured.
The quake has already tackled tremendous poverty when the entire country is deeply involved in the economic crisis after many countries have withdrawn important funding and development assistance following the takeover of Tullivan. Struck the mountainous area of. On Friday, Pakistan’s meteorological agency reported a new magnitude 4.2 quake that reported that the state-owned Bakhtar News Agency had killed five more and injured 11 in the devastated Gayan district.
International aid continued to bring the country to the fore, and its withdrawal made millions of people unable to afford food, further straining medical facilities that were already struggling. Some civil servants, such as doctors, nurses and teachers, were not paid for months because the Tulliburn government did not have access to frozen foreign exchange reserves, but nearly half of the 38 million population was their basic food. Unable to meet demand. Salary delays continue throughout the public sector.
Afghanistan’s international isolation also complicates relief efforts as there are few aid organizations in the country and international sanctions on Afghanistan’s banks make it difficult to transfer cash to the country. Despite the exemption from the US Treasury that allows remittances to aid groups, banks are hesitant to process such transactions for fear of violating the rules anyway.
Aid groups lament that they must pay local staff a bag of cash, be physically carried by staff to the country, and then be distributed directly throughout the state. This process is expensive and there are charges along the way for shipping and security.
Aid groups like the local Red Moon, and UN agencies like the World Food Program have sent food, tents, beds and other necessities to families in Paktika and the neighboring Khostika, the epicenter of the quake. rice field. Several countries have sent freighter aid.
Still, the inhabitants seemed to be primarily themselves to deal with the aftermath, as their new Taliban-led government and international aid community struggled to bring aid. The rough mountain road leading to the disaster area was aggravated by damage and rain.
Thousands of stone and mudbrick houses were often destroyed by the earthquake, struck at night, and the whole family was trapped in rubble. Many of the survivors spent their first night outside in the cold rain. Since then, villagers have been searching for survivors, burying the dead and digging rubble by hand.
Bakhtar News Agency Taliban said Friday that the first earthquake killed 1,150 people. Abdul Wahid Rayan said at least 1,600 people were injured.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has killed 770 people.
Given the difficulty of accessing and communicating with the affected villages, it is not clear how the death toll has been reached. Both severe casualties will make earthquake Afghanistan the most deadly in 20 years.
State media reported that nearly 3,000 homes, including at least 1,000 in Gayan, were destroyed or severely damaged. Modern buildings can withstand magnitude 6 earthquakes elsewhere, but mudbrick houses and landslide-prone mountains in Afghanistan make such earthquakes more dangerous.
In the villages of the Gayan district, where AP journalists visited for hours on Thursday, they spent the previous rainy night on collapsed open-roofed lifted timber, pulling stones by hand and looking for a missing loved one. The family that was there. Taliban militants toured vehicles in the area, but only a few helped dig up the rubble.
There were few signs of heavy equipment, and only one bulldozer was in transit. Ambulances circulated, but other help to life was largely unclear. Gayan’s six-year-old boy cried, saying his parents, two sisters, and one brother were all dead. He escaped from the ruins of his house and evacuated with his neighbor.
Afghanistan’s economy relied on the support and assistance of international donors even before the Taliban seized power last August. The United States and its NATO allies withdraw their troops and attack the same rebels 9/11 times.
Aid groups still active in Afghanistan are struggling to deliver medicines, food and tents to remote earthquake-stricken areas, but UN agencies are facing a $ 3 billion shortage this year. increase.
Trucks of food and other necessities arrived from Pakistan, and planes full of humanitarian aid landed from Iran, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. India has sent a technical team to the capital Kabul to coordinate the provision of humanitarian aid. India said its aid would be handed over to UN agencies on the ground and the Afghan Red Crescent Societies.
Other countries that provided aid had a hard time emphasizing that it would only work through UN agencies, not the Taliban, which the government has not yet officially acknowledged. Some have called on the Taliban to tackle human rights issues first. The main ones are the rights and freedoms of women and girls in Afghanistan.
By Ebrahim Noroozi
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