Rescue teams continue working in Afghanistan to find survivors of the devastating earthquakes that shook the province of Herat this Saturday and have left at least 2,530 people dead and 9,240 injured, as confirmed by a spokesperson for the Taliban authorities. .
Some six villages have been destroyed and hundreds of civilians have been buried under the rubble, according to Abdul Wahid Rayan, spokesman for the Ministry of Information and Culture.. For this reason, professionals and volunteers work this Sunday to manually remove the deceased and injured who are found among rocks and rubble.
Thus, a video has been released in which a girl is rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building as a result of the earthquakes.. The images show how several rescuers try to free the little girl, who was buried up to her neck.
In the video you can also see that, while they are making efforts to save the girl, a hand covers the body of the minor, about whom the rescuers have indicated that it could be the mother.. It is unknown if the girl or the mother have survived.
Around a dozen teams have been mobilized to help with rescue efforts and care for the victims, including members of the army and humanitarian organizations such as the World Health Organization or the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS).
Late this Saturday, the Taliban's main spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, announced the launch of a large emergency deployment of rescue troops to alleviate the effects of the earthquakes.
More than 1,300 homes destroyed
The powerful chain of earthquakes of magnitude between 5.5 and 6.3 has caused one of the worst catastrophes of this nature in the Central Asian country in the last two decades. All of the earthquakes shook the region in the space of just one hour, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The tremor was recorded in the Afghan province of Herat, in a radius of approximately 50 kilometers, and was especially felt in the municipality of Zendejan, a town of about 10,000 inhabitants in the valley of the Hari Rud river.
The two most notable earthquakes, both of magnitude 6.3, occurred about 33 kilometers northeast of this town, with a hypocenter located at a depth of 14 and 10 kilometers respectively.. We must add a third earthquake of 5.5 to 29 kilometers from the town. The fourth and last earthquake, of magnitude 5.9, was recorded 35 kilometers from Herat, with a hypocenter at 7.7 kilometers.
The latest balance has been released by the spokesperson for the Ministry of Disaster Management, Janan Faiq, who has confirmed that the greatest damage has been observed in 13 towns in Zendejan, where more than 1,300 homes have been completely destroyed. made known at a press conference reported by Tolo News.
It must be said, however, that the Taliban leadership in Kabul has at the same time offered significantly lower figures, particularly in terms of injuries. The spokesman for the Taliban politburo, Mohamed Naim, has confirmed more than 2,000 deaths (2,053, to be exact) but the number of injured is ten times lower, 1,240, although they have acknowledged that the final figure may be much higher.
Afghanistan prone to natural disasters
Afghanistan is among the countries most prone to natural disasters, being located in a point of great seismic activity. In addition, it has a very vulnerable population, mostly poor, and lacks sufficient infrastructure to deal with major disasters.
In this sense, the country suffers frequent earthquakes, especially near the junction between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates, such as in the Hindu Kush mountain range.
This same year, last March, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake occurred near the city of Jurm, in the northeast of the country, killed 13 people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Last year, in June 2022, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Paktika and Khost provinces killed more than 1,000 people and left thousands homeless in Paktika and Khost provinces in the southeast of the country. country.