2LT International News

KABUL, Afghanistan: The strong earthquake that hit eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan late last week, wiping out villages and causing heavy destruction, is now credited with claiming more than 2,200 lives.

The quake struck at 11:47 p.m. local time last Thursday night with a magnitude of 6.2. The U.S. Geological Survey said its center was about 17 miles east-northeast of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province and only five miles deep. Because it was shallow, the shaking caused far more damage.

The worst destruction was reported in Kunar province, where districts such as Nur Gul, Soki, Watpur, Manogi, and Chapadare saw entire homes crumble. Many of the houses were made of mud bricks and wood, materials too weak to withstand such force.

Jalalabad, a busy trade hub with about 300,000 residents, has stronger concrete and brick buildings. However, many surrounding villages are poor and rely on weaker structures, making them especially vulnerable.

Hamdullah Fitrat, a Taliban spokesperson, confirmed on Thursday of this week that the death toll has now risen to 2,205, making it one of the deadliest earthquakes in Afghanistan’s modern history.

Health ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said rescue teams were still struggling to reach the worst-hit places. Provincial officials confirmed that hundreds of injured people had already been taken to hospitals, but many more are expected once rescuers arrive in isolated mountain areas cut off by broken roads.

Kunar, a mountainous region bordering Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has seen massive destruction. In one village in Nurgal district, nearly every house was reduced to rubble. “Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble,” one desperate villager said, pleading for immediate help.

Blocked roads have forced aid workers to walk for hours to reach survivors. The injured are being flown from Nangarhar Airport to hospitals in other cities.

Survivors described scenes of horror. Sadiqullah, from Maza Dara in Nurgal, said he woke to a sound like thunder. He rushed to his children’s room and managed to save three of them. But when he tried to rescue the rest of his family, the house collapsed on him.

“My wife and two sons are dead, and my father is in the hospital with me,” he said. “We were trapped for hours until people from nearby areas pulled me out.”

He recalled that it felt as if the whole mountain was shaking.

Afghanistan is no stranger to such disasters. The country lies on a dangerous fault line where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. Just last year, a series of quakes in the west killed more than 1,000 people.