A high-level commission from the Taliban regime was this Monday, October 9, in Herat, the province affected by the 6.3 magnitude earthquake last weekend, the most devastating that has hit the country in two decades, and announced a next visit of Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdul Ghani Baradar to deliver aid and support rescue efforts.
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The delegation referred to a number of deaths and injuries of around 4,500 people, without discriminating between them, although it added that it was waiting for an update. The number differs from the 2,500 affected people estimated by the United Nations.
According to Janan Sayiq, spokesman for the disaster authority, about 20 villages in the Herat area were devastated, with more than 2,000 houses reduced to rubble as a result of the movement that had strong aftershocks, the most powerful calculated by the United States Geological Survey. between 5.5 and 6.3.
Helps with droppers and increasing needs
The meager rescue teams and the population of the affected areas have combined to dig, sometimes with their hands, in search of survivors in the rubble, while international aid is slow to arrive, in part due to the governments’ distrust of trying with a regime that has almost no recognition like the Taliban and partly because world attention has shifted to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Countries such as Denmark and Norway have expressed their willingness to collaborate with humanitarian agencies, while China and Pakistan have offered their support to the Taliban, without setting conditions. The latter is currently evaluating the sending of supplies and rescue teams, as well as food and medicine.
Iran has also offered humanitarian aid, as Hossein Amirabdollahian, Tehran’s Foreign Minister, announced in a call to his Taliban counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi, in which he expressed his condolences for the tragedy.
Disaster at the door for survivors
The earthquake occurred at a time when the country was already experiencing a major humanitarian challenge, with basic needs uncovered for some 29 million people, due to the isolation of the regime. The situation will surely be aggravated by this disaster, which occurs as winter approaches.
Afghanistan was also suffering the consequences of two earthquakes that were not so powerful but also had devastating effects, one that occurred seven months ago on the border with Pakistan, and another in June of last year, in a mountainous region, where more than 1,000 people lost their lives.
With AP
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