A massive and desperate rescue operation was underway across eastern Afghanistan on Monday following a powerful, shallow earthquake that struck in the dead of night, collapsing homes onto sleeping families and killing more than 800 people according to Taliban authorities, who warned the death toll was likely to rise further as crews reached remote villages.
The 6.0-magnitude quake, which rattled buildings from Kabul to Islamabad, Pakistan, just before midnight, inflicted its most severe damage in the rugged, mountainous Kunar province near the epicenter, though casualties and widespread destruction were reported across at least five provinces.
As evening approached nearly a full day after the disaster, rescue teams and local villagers, often digging with their bare hands through the rubble of flattened mud-brick homes, were still pulling survivors from the debris. T
he injured were being evacuated by helicopter to hospitals in the city of Jalalabad, which lies approximately 27 kilometers from the quake’s epicenter.
The United States Geological Survey noted the quake was relatively shallow, occurring only about eight kilometers below the Earthโs surface, a factor that significantly amplified its destructive potential, especially for a region where most buildings are simple, low-rise structures highly vulnerable to collapse.
The scale of the tragedy is immense. In Kunar province alone, approximately 800 people were reported killed with another 2,500 injured. Neighboring Nangarhar province reported 12 dead and 255 injured, while Laghman province confirmed 58 injuries. The true toll, however, remains uncertain.
Ehsanullah Ehsan, the head of disaster management in Kunar, told AFP that the search operation was ongoing with many people still trapped under rubble, and the United Nations migration agency warned that some of the most severely impacted villages “remain inaccessible due to road blockages.” Despite the efforts of local residents to clear the paths, roads were still blocked nearly 20 hours after the quake, severely hampering the delivery of aid and the arrival of heavy machinery.
Survivors recounted scenes of terror and devastation. Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad, a local official from the Nurgal district, described a night of unimaginable fear, with children and women screaming, adding that many in the affected villages were among the over four million Afghans who had recently returned to the country from Iran and Pakistan with hopes of rebuilding their lives.
Zafar Khan Gojar, a 22-year-old survivor evacuated from Nurgal, described how the rooms and walls of his home collapsed, killing some children and injuring others, including his brother who suffered a broken leg.
The international community expressed its condolences, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stating his “full solidarity with the people of Afghanistan” and Pope Francis sharing that he was “deeply saddened by the significant loss of life.”
The disaster strikes an Afghanistan already ravaged by four decades of war and a profound humanitarian crisis. Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 and the subsequent slashing of foreign aid, the nation’s ability to respond to such catastrophes has been severely undermined.
This vulnerability is compounded by the country’s location in a seismically active zone; the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates, has seen 12 earthquakes with magnitudes greater than seven since 1900. This latest quake is a grim reminder of this recurring threat, coming just months after a 6.3-magnitude quake killed over 1,500 in Herat province in October 2023 and a 5.9-magnitude quake claimed over 1,000 lives in Paktika province in June 2022.
