Aid agencies plead for funds as rough terrain hinders relief effort and 98% of buildings in one province are damaged
Hundreds more bodies have been recovered from houses in mountain villages destroyed by a major earthquake in Afghanistan early this week, pushing the death toll to more than 2,200, a Taliban government spokesperson said Thursday.
The shallow, magnitude-6.0 quake struck the mountainous and remote eastern part of the country late on Sunday, levelling villages and trapping people under rubble. Most of the casualties have been in Kunar province, where people typically live in wood and mud-brick houses along steep river valleys separated by high mountains.
About 98% of the buildings in the province were damaged or destroyed, according to an assessment issued on Thursday by the charity Islamic Relief. Aid agencies said they were sorely in need of staff and supplies to tend to the region’s survivors.
Muhammad Israel said the quake unleashed a landslide that buried his home, livestock and belongings in Kunar. “All the rocks came down from the mountain,” he said. “I barely got my children out of there … The earthquake jolts are still happening. It is impossible to live there.”
