PESHAWAR, Pakistan — At least 800 people have been killed and more than 1,300 others injured in Afghanistan after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit the country, Taliban officials said Monday.
The earthquake struck 17 miles from the eastern city of Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan, at aound midnight local time (3:30 p.m. ET Sunday), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Because the earthquake hit a remote mountainous area, “it will take time to get the exact information about human losses and damage to the infrastructure,” said Sharafat Zaman, a spokesperson for the Afghan Public Health Ministry.
“We have launched a massive rescue operation and mobilized hundreds of people to help people in the affected areas,” Zaman said.
Taliban security personnel carry an earthquake victim evacuated by a military helicopter from the Nurgal district of Kunar province, in Jalalabad on Monday.Wakil Kohsar / AFP via Getty Images
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said the death toll had risen to 800 people. Earlier, Afghan interior ministry spokesperson Mufti Abdul Matin Qani had said 622 people had been confirmed dead and more than 1,300 injured in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, which includes Jalalabad, and Kunar.
The ministry said that 1,000 injured people had been evacuated and admitted to hospitals.
A U.N. team has been mobilized in Afghanistan, Secretary-General António Guterres said in a post on X. Several U.N. organizations, including the Children's Fund, the World Health Organization, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the International Organization for Migration, said on X that they were providing emergency assistance.
An injured Afghan boy being treated at a hospital in Jalalabad after the earthquake on Monday. AIMAL ZAHIR / AFP - Getty Images
Construction quality is poor in rural Afghanistan, where buildings are often made of mud bricks and wood. Videos from Kunar showed collapsed homes and rescuers combing through the rubble for survivors. Injured people from these remote areas were seen being lifted on gurneys onto helicopters.
'I was half buried'
Victims watched as their homes collapsed before their eyes at night. One survivor, Sadiqullah, said, "I was half buried and unable to get out."
Sadiqullah, who like other Afghans uses only one name, was awakened by what he described as a loud boom sound and rushed to grab his family, who were sleeping.
He was able to rescue three of his children but before he could rescue the rest of his family, the roof fell on top of him.
"My wife and two sons are dead and my father is injured and in hospital with me," he told the Associated Press. "We were trapped for three to four hours until people from other areas arrived and pulled me out.”
Since the initial quake, at least five aftershocks ranging from 4.5 magnitude to 5.2 magnitude have hit the area throughout Monday, according to the USGS.
Civil defense workers, locals, and army soldiers prepare to evacuate injured victims in Mazar Dara, Kunar province, on Monday.Hedayat Shah / AP
Aftershocks can last for days and can sometimes be worse than the first quake.
Afghanistan is especially vulnerable to earthquakes as it sits on top of several fault lines where the Indian and Eurasian plates meet. The mountainous terrain of eastern Afghanistan is also prone to landslides, making it harder for emergency services to carry out rescues.
This quake was especially devastating as it hit at a shallow depth of 5 miles, making it far more destructive even at moderate magnitude.
People carrying an earthquake victim to an ambulance at an airport in Jalalabad on Monday.Reuters
In 2022, around 1,000 people were killed and thousands more were injured when a 5.9-magnitude earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan.
That, too, was a shallow quake.
The next year, three 6.3-magnitude quakes hit the western Afghanistan province of Herat in one week. The Taliban said around 4,000 people were killed, though the United Nations put the death tally at 1,500.
Monday's quake comes at a challenging time for Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, which is suffering from four consecutive years of drought and the influx of over 2.3 million Afghans who have returned from Iran and Pakistan this year.
“Below-average first and second season crop production and reduced livestock income limit their ability to stock food for the winter,” the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which was established by the United States Agency for International Development, said in a report last week.
Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis has been fueled by decades of conflict, including the 20-year U.S. war with the Taliban. Aid agencies say roughly 23 million people — half of the country’s population — need aid.
Until last year, the U.S. provided nearly half of all humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. But under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has cancelled an estimated $1.7 billion of that support, according to a report filed to Congress in April by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
The administration has also refused to restore its emergency food aid for Afghanistan, while restoring it for some other countries.
Mushtaq Yusufzai reported from Peshawar and Mithil Aggarwal from Hong Kong.
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