Mass funerals were held Monday for around 300 victims of the powerful earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people in western Afghanistan, where villagers and volunteers continue desperately to clear the rubble in search of survivors.
Hundreds of bodies, covered with a white sheet, were placed on the ground in the village of Siah Ab, near the epicenter of the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that occurred on Saturday and was followed by eight aftershocks. The crowd came to meditate, crossing their arms in a sign of prayer, in front of the aligned remains.
According to the UN, “100%” of houses were destroyed in 11 villages in the rural district of Zenda Jan, about 30 kilometers northwest of the city of Herat, capital of the province of the same name.
“People are trying to search and get their families out of the debris,” Disaster Management Ministry spokesman Mullah Janan Sayeq told reporters, describing a “very bad situation.”
Trucks full of food, water and blankets have reached isolated villages.
Volunteers come out, equipped with picks and shovels, still animated by the slight hope of being able to save someone.
“A lot of people came from distant districts to pull people out of the rubble,” observes Khalid, 32, at Kashkak village in rural Zinda Jan district.
“Everyone is looking for bodies, and we don’t know if there are any left under the rubble,” emphasizes Khalid, who only goes by one name like many Afghans.
Local and national authorities have given sometimes conflicting figures on the number of people killed and injured. But the Ministry of Disaster Management on Sunday set the death toll at 2,053, and spoke of an “unprecedented earthquake”.
“We cannot give exact figures for the dead and injured because they fluctuate,” Mullah Sayeq explained on Monday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 11,000 people from 1,655 families were affected by the earthquake and its aftershocks.
The Taliban, who regained power in August 2021, will face a major logistical challenge: rehousing residents as winter approaches.
Transformed into sand
The authorities have complicated relations with international humanitarian organizations. They banned women from working for the UN and NGOs, making it difficult to assess the needs of families in the most conservative parts of the country.
The organization “Save the Children” spoke of “a crisis on top of another crisis”. According to its country director, Arshad Malik, “the extent of the damage is terrifying. The number of people affected by this tragedy is truly overwhelming.”
In the village of Sarboland, near the epicenter of the earthquake, an AFP journalist saw the destroyed houses, from which personal belongings were flapping in the wind. Men clear the rubble.
“From the first shock, all the houses collapsed,” says Bashir Ahmad, 42. “Those who were inside the houses were buried. There are families we have no news about.”
Nek Mohammad, 32, was at work when the first tremor struck. “We came home and found there was nothing left. Everything had become sand,” he explains, adding that around 30 bodies were found.
Most rural houses in the country are made of sun-dried mud bricks and wooden support posts. Several generations generally live under the same roof.
This new tragedy comes at a time when Afghanistan is already suffering from a serious humanitarian crisis, with the widespread withdrawal of foreign aid since the Taliban’s return to power.
The province of Herat, which has 1.9 million inhabitants according to World Bank data, has also been hit for years by a drought which has paralyzed many agricultural communities already plagued by countless difficulties.
Afghanistan frequently experiences earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
In June 2022, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake left more than a thousand dead and tens of thousands homeless in the poor province of Paktika (southeast).