Earthquake

2022 - 6 - 23

Post cover — Image courtesy of "Aljazeera.com"

Taliban say Afghanistan earthquake rescue efforts almost complete (Aljazeera.com)

Health ministry says aid has begun to arrive to the area affected by earthquake that killed at least 1000 people.

Drought has undermined food production and 9 million Afghans face famine. Really poor areas where people have the most basic living standards,” he said. And again getting there is extremely difficult.” “We call on natural disaster management agencies and the international community to provide immediate and comprehensive aid to the Afghan people,” he posted on twitter. We call on natural disaster management agencies & the international community to provide immediate & comprehensive aid to the Afghan people on basis of humanitarianism so that the victims are able to financially rebuild their livelihoods. “Aid has arrived to the area and it is continuing but more is needed,” he said.

Afghanistan earthquake kills at least 1000 (Blue Mountains Gazette)

More than 600 people have been injured after a deadly earthquake struck Afghanistan. The death toll from an earthquake in Afghanistan has hit 1000, disaster ...

Advertisement "Many people are still buried under the soil. Advertisement "The death toll is likely to rise as some of the villages are in remote areas in the mountains and it will take some time to collect details," interior ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi said. Advertisement A spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said it was sending teams in addition to ambulances and helicopters sent by the Taliban-led ministry of defence, which was leading rescue efforts.

Afghanistan Live Updates: Rescuers Search for Survivors After ... (The New York Times)

The 5.9-magnitude quake, in Afghanistan's remote southeast near the Pakistan border, injured more than 1600 people, officials said.

Afghans had been struggling to emerge from decades of conflict: the 20-year war between the United States and its allies against militants, the civil war of the 1990s, the Soviet occupation before that. The earthquake struck in the middle of the night, when almost everyone in the area was asleep at home. The Taliban have struggled to attract more foreign aid for public services from Western donors since announcing edicts barring girls from attending secondary schools and restricting women’s rights. Mohammad Almas, the head of aid and appeals at Qamar, a charity active in the area, said that because the earthquake hit at night, most people were inside sleeping. Many of the country’s assets overseas have been frozen and international support has collapsed. The location of the earthquake fault probably played a role as well. The Taliban have struggled to attract foreign aid from Western donors since announcing edicts barring girls from attending secondary schools and restricting women’s rights. During the day, people might be in offices or schools, which might be of higher quality construction than homes. That toll was expected to rise, reflecting the poverty of the region, where some residents live in homes of clay and straw, and the difficult terrain, far from many clinics or hospitals that could help the wounded. More than 1,000 people died and 1,600 others were injured, with the neighboring province of Paktika suffering the worst damage. Most attract little attention and cause few deaths, but the death toll in Afghanistan has surpassed 1,000 and is expected to rise as search-and-rescue operations continue. He said the U.N. lacked the equipment needed to rescue people trapped under rubble and that Turkey was best positioned to help with its search-and-rescue capability.

Afghan earthquake survivors dig by hand as rescuers struggle to ... (The Guardian)

Organised rescue efforts are struggling to reach the site of an earthquake in Afghanistan that has killed more than 1,000 people, as survivors dig through ...

Iran has promised us help and their rescue teams are on their way coming to the area. Iran has promised us help and their rescue teams are on their way coming to the area. “We have sent dozens of people to rescue people from under the rubbles but it is not enough. However, officials from multiple UN agencies said the Taliban were allowing full access to the area. Rescue efforts have been complicated by the fact that many countries have suspended or cut back on aid to Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover last year. An estimated 1,500 other people were reported injured, the state-run news agency said.

Afghanistan earthquake: 'What do we do when another disaster hits ... (CNN)

Aid groups scrambled on Thursday to reach victims of a powerful earthquake that rocked eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 1000 people in an area ...

Sanctions have crippled the Afghan economy and sent many of its 20 million people into a severe hunger crisis. This means "around 80% of organizations (who responded to OCHA's monitoring survey) are facing delays in transferring funds, with two thirds reporting that their international banks continue to deny transfers. The government has so far distributed food, tents, clothing, and other supplies to the quake-hit provinces, according to Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense's official Twitter account. Already yesterday we'd had a lot of rain here and the combination of the rain and the earthquake has lead to landslides in some areas, making roads difficult to pass by," UNICEF Afghanistan's Chief of Communications Sam Mort told CNN from Kabul. Pictures from the badly hit Paktika province, where most of the deaths have been reported, show homes reduced to dust and rubble. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had mobilized "all of the resources" from around the country, with teams on the ground providing medicine and emergency support. Like nearly all other nations, it does not have official relations with the Taliban government. "There will be months and potentially years of building back," she said. Teams deployed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have yet to arrive, according to Anita Dullard, ICRC's Asia Pacific spokesperson. The United Nations says 2,000 homes are thought to have been destroyed. The slow response, exacerbated by international sanctions and decades of mismanagement, concerns people working in the humanitarian space, like Obaidullah Baheer, lecturer in Transitional Justice at the American University of Afghanistan. "This is a very patchwork, band-aid solution for a problem that we need to start thinking (about) mid to long term... what do we do when (another disaster) hits?"

Australia's Afghan community, devastated by deadly earthquake ... (ABC News)

Key points: The magnitude-6.1 earthquake has devastated the Afghan diaspora; Afghanistan's ambassador in Australia says deaths could reach 2,500; Australians ...

There are a lot of people who are displaced — they have nowhere to go, they have no shelter." "There is some relief and aid coming into these villages … [but] food and medicine is lacking. "Some people here, they don't even know if their family is OK there. A spokesperson at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the government was extending its condolences to the families of those killed or injured in the earthquake, and said Australia was already working with international partners on the ground. "The country was already suffering. Mr Alam said the community had sprung into action to raise money for the victims of the disaster, which he said would be distributed via local community groups in Paktika and Khost. The terrain is very difficult and it's very difficult to reach," he told the ABC. The country's fragile banking system is under strain and many locals said the only swift way to send money to the affected families in this remote corner of the country was the traditional hawala transfer, which is banned in many countries. He said the news was "devastating" for the Afghan community and asylum seekers in Australia, many of whom have been in limbo in Australia for a decade and who still have family in the region. But he said he was confident Australia could still send money to help Afghans struggling in the wake of the crisis without funnelling funds to the Taliban, largely by making sure donations were made to third parties, including the United Nations and international relief organisations. He said the entire Afghan diaspora in Australia has been in a state of grief due to grim scale of the losses. Sayid Mossavi is the vice-president of the Australian Afghan Hassanian Youth Association, an NGO that has a handful of volunteers in the country, who have made their way to Paktika in the wake of the disaster.