KABUL: A magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck southeastern Afghanistan on Thursday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences said, the third tremor in the same region since Sunday, when one of the country’s deadliest quakes in decades killed more than 2,200 people.
The tremor, at a depth of 10km (six miles), followed the earlier quakes that flattened villages in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, left tens of thousands homeless and injured more than 3,600 people.
Survivors have been left without shelter as aid groups warn of dwindling resources, with the United Nations and other agencies citing a critical need for food, medical supplies and shelter.
Rescue workers on Thursday pulled bodies from the rubble of homes razed in Afghanistan’s earthquakes as the confirmed death toll topped 2,200, while homeless survivors faced a bleak future with global aid agencies warning of dwindling resources.
Search operations continued in the quake-hit mountainous eastern areas, the Taliban administration said, announcing a new death toll of 2,205 with at least 3,640 people injured.
“Everything we had has been destroyed,” said Aalem Jan, whose house in the worst-affected province of Kunar was flattened by the tremors.
“The only remaining things are these clothes on our backs,” said Jan. His family sat under trees with their belongings piled next to them.
The first earthquake of magnitude 6, one of Afghanistan’s deadliest in recent years, unleashed widespread damage and destruction in the provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar on Sunday, when it struck at a shallow depth of 10km.
A second quake of magnitude 5.5 on Tuesday caused panic and interrupted rescue efforts as it sent rocks sliding down mountains and cut off roads to villages in remote areas.
More than 6,700 homes have been destroyed, authorities have said. The United Nations has warned the toll could rise with people still trapped under rubble as time runs out for survivors.
Humanitarian needs are “vast and growing rapidly”, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
“Up to 84,000 people are directly and indirectly affected, with thousands displaced,” it added, citing initial figures.
In some of the worst-affected villages in Kunar province, two out of three people had been killed or injured, while 98 per cent of buildings were either destroyed or damaged by the tremors, according to an assessment by British-based charity Islamic Relief Worldwide.
Survivors desperately searching for family members sifted rubble, carried bodies on woven stretchers and dug graves with pickaxes in the wait for aid to arrive.
Video showed trucks, some laden with sacks of flour and others carrying men with shovels, travelling to remote villages on higher slopes. Authorities also airdropped dozens of commando forces at sites where helicopters could not land.
Afghanistan is prone to deadly quakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.
With homes made mostly of dry masonry, stone and timber, some families preferred to sit out in the open rather than return home as aftershocks continue at regular intervals.
Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2025
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