The 6.0-magnitude temblor struck a remote mountainous area in eastern Afghanistan along the Pakistan border at around midnight local time (3:30 p.m. ET Sunday), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
It was epicentered 17 miles from the eastern city of Jalalabad at a shallow depth of 5 miles, at which even relatively moderate earthquakes can cause widespread damage.
Afghanistan is especially vulnerable to earthquakes as it sits on top of several fault lines where the Indian and Eurasian plates meet.
Most of the fatalities have been recorded in the Kunar province along the border, Taliban officials have said, where the population lives in steep valleys in poorly constructed homes made of mud bricks and wood.
And even though the population density of the region is low, the earthquake had struck when everybody was asleep, collapsing roofs above them.
“Children and their families were fast asleep in their homes — homes that were not built to withstand tremors of this magnitude,” said Samira Sayed Rahman, Advocacy Director at Save the Children Afghanistan.
The United Nations coordinator for the country said that “the biggest challenge is to reach these remote areas with the road access extremely damaged.” “There’s been lots of landslides and rock falls, and access has been very limited to everybody in the first 24 hours,” Indrika Ratwatte said in a press briefing in Kabul.
As many as 12,000 people are estimated to be directly affected by the quake, the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report Monday, warning that the death toll was expected to rise as rescuers complete their search operations.
The Taliban, which seized control of the country in 2021, has called for international aid to tackle the devastation.
That is complicated, as most countries do not recognize the Taliban’s rule. Last month, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said the Taliban uses its regulatory power to determine which NGOs can work in Afghanistan and how, determining where the aid goes.
The Taliban denies diverting aid.
Nonetheless, some countries have offered help in the wake of the quake, including China and the U.K., which said Monday it would provide nearly $1.3 million in assistance split among a few aid agencies.
“These are life and death decisions while we race against time to reach people,” Ratwatte said, urging the international community to help.
But the U.S., which supplied nearly half of all humanitarian aid to Afghanistan until last year, has yet to announce any aid after axing an estimated $1.7 billion of aid contracts to Afghanistan under President Donald Trump.
More than 420 health facilities across the country were shuttered or suspended due to the “massive reduction” in global funding, said Kate Carey, the deputy head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan.
Out of those, 80 were in eastern Afghanistan, Carey said. “The consequence is that the remaining facilities are overwhelmed, have insufficient supplies and personnel and are not as close to the affected populations.”
This is the third major earthquake in Afghanistan since the U.S. pullout.
Around 1,000 people were killed and thousands more injured in 2022 when a shallow 5.9-magnitude earthquake also hit eastern Afghanistan.
A year later, about 4,000 people were killed in the western Afghanistan province of Herat from three 6.3-magnitude quakes. The United Nations had issued a lower death tally for that quake at nearly 1,500.
Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, has been ravaged by years of conflict, including a two-decade war between the Taliban and the U.S.
Since coming back to power, the Taliban has struggled to gain international legitimacy at a time when Afghanistan is facing food challenges after four consecutive years of drought and the influx of over 2 million Afghans from neighboring Iran and Pakistan.
“We cannot afford to forget the people of Afghanistan who are facing multiple crises, multiple shocks, and the resilience of the communities has been saturated,” Ratwatte said.
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