Strength 6.3
Afghanistan shaken again by severe earthquake – UN warns of famine
STORY: On Tuesday, people in western Afghanistan in the border province of Herat near Iran were still busy with rescue and clean-up work after the devastating earthquakes at the weekend. According to the Taliban administration, at least 2,400 people were killed. And many are still missing. But now the earth shook again in this area early Wednesday morning. According to the US Earthquake Observatory USGS, the tremors again had a magnitude of 6.3 and occurred around 28 kilometers northwest of the city of Herat at a depth of ten kilometers. There were initially no reports of injuries or new damage. The remote mountain region is difficult to reach and aid has been slow to arrive. Afghan rescue workers have been trying for days to rescue those buried and bodies from under the rubble from the weekend with very limited resources. However, the hope of finding people alive is dwindling. And the severe aftershock is likely to make rescue and recovery work even more difficult.
Western Afghanistan is not calming down. The region was again hit by a strong earthquake. The United Nations warns of dramatic consequences.
Western Afghanistan was shaken again by a severe earthquake early on Wednesday morning. According to the US Earthquake Observatory USGS, the quake had a magnitude of 6.3 and occurred around 28 kilometers northwest of the city of Herat at a depth of ten kilometers. The state news agency Bakhtar reported new serious damage, destroyed houses and at least 100 injured.
Nearly 2,500 people died in several earthquakes in the region over the weekend, according to media reports citing official statistics. More than 2,000 other people were injured. The UN emergency relief office OCHA, however, had previously put the number of deaths at around 1,300. Herat is located in the border province of the same name near Iran and is the second largest city in Afghanistan after Kabul.
Afghanistan was already shaken by an earthquake on Saturday
On Saturday morning, at least eight earthquakes shook the border region near Iran within a short period of time. The US earthquake monitoring station USGS put the magnitude at values between 4.6 and 6.3. The tremors occurred northwest of Herat at a shallow depth of around ten kilometers. Tremors of magnitude 5.1 were recorded on Monday.
There are frequent severe earthquakes in the region where the Arabian, Indian and Eurasian plates meet. More than 1,000 people died in a devastating earthquake in Afghanistan in 2022. After several decades of conflict, many houses are poorly built. Earthquakes therefore often cause great damage.
UN World Food Program warns of famine in Afghanistan
Meanwhile, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned of a famine in Afghanistan due to drastically reduced funding. “The situation is pretty hopeless,” said WFP regional director for Asia and the Pacific, John Aylieff, to the editorial network Germany (RND). Humanitarian aid programs are “drastically underfunded.”
The WFP has 80 percent less money for Afghanistan than last year, said Aylieff. Instead of 1.6 billion US dollars (around 1.5 billion euros), only 340 million US dollars (around 320 million euros) would be available for Afghanistan. “15 million people in Afghanistan are currently suffering from hunger, we wanted to reach at least 13 million. Due to a lack of funding, we had to cut off aid to ten million people,” he told the RND.
Critical situation due to “brutal winter”
The approaching “brutal” winter in Afghanistan is making things “particularly critical”: “Some mountain villages are cut off from the outside world by the snow for up to six months. They cannot survive without supplies,” said Aylieff. He expects drastic consequences: “Of course people will flee. But above all, more people will die.”
The UN representative called on the international community to increase its support for Afghanistan. “Even if the Taliban make many highly problematic decisions, humanity must come first,” he said. The support for Afghanistan has fallen significantly more compared to the aid for other countries. “That doesn’t meet the need in any way.”