By Derek Cai, Joel Guinto and Yogita Limaye for the BBC
Ruins and rubble from demolished houses in Herat, after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, resulting in thousands of injuries and fatalities. Photo: MUHAMMAD BALABULUKI
Rescuers are digging for survivors of a powerful earthquake that flattened whole villages in Afghanistan, killing more than 1,000 people.
The magnitude 6.3 quake struck on Saturday morning in Herat province, a barren landscape dotted with mud brick homes.
Villagers were still using shovels and bare hands to search for more than 500 missing people, the UN said.
Aid, delayed by blocked routes and communication lines being down, only started to trickle in on Monday.
There are fears the death toll could be much higher.
The quake hit Zindajan, a rural district some 40km from Herat city, where "100 percent of homes are estimated to have been completely destroyed," according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Afghan mourners prepare to offer mass funeral prayers for the people killed in a series of earthquakes in Herat province on 9 October. Photo: MOHSEN KARIMI
Images from the villages show entire houses, which were too fragile to withstand such a quake, reduced to rubble.
"We came home and saw there was nothing left. Everything had turned to mud," resident Nek Mohammad told AFP news agency.
"We started to dig with shovels and whatever we had to rescue women and children from the rubble."
The Taliban government and aid agencies initially struggled to estimate the death toll, or how many remained missing. It is unlikely officials had population records for such remote villages.
The area is also home to communities displaced by war and drought, making it difficult for the local administration to know exactly how many people have been living there.
Ill-equipped hospitals have been struggling to accommodate the injured, who now number more than 1600. Many of them were sent to Herat Regional Hospital, where teams from medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have been since Saturday.
"Fortunately, most of the patients arriving are non-emergency cases," said Prue Coakley, the acting country representative for MSF in Afghanistan.
"However, many of them do not have homes to return to, that is why many of them are remaining in the hospital while authorities look for alternative places for them to stay."
She added that a team focused on paediatric patients had been sent to the hospital in Herat. The UN said a majority of the quake survivors who were being treated were women and children, while doctors told BBC women and children also accounted for many of the dead.
The Taliban government said quake survivors were in urgent need of food, drinking water, medicine, clothes and tents for shelter. Several aid agencies have dispatched help, including the Afghan Red Cross Society, MSF, World Food Programme and Unicef. But the agencies said the cash-strapped country needed more aid.
Afghanistan has been reeling from an economic crisis since the Taliban takeover in 2021, when aid given directly to the government was stopped.
Few countries have pledged money since Saturday's quake. China's Red Cross Society has offered US$200,000 (NZ$332,000) in emergency cash aid, Chinese media reported.
Neighbouring Pakistan said it was in contact with Afghan officials and would "extend all possible support to the recovery effort".
Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes - especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, as it lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
In June last year, the province of Paktika was hit by a magnitude 5.9 quake, which killed more than 1000 people and left tens of thousands homeless.
- This story was originally published by the BBC
