AFGHANISTAN — NOT a single house remains standing in Masoud village of Nurgal district following the devastating earthquake in Afghanistan’s remote Kunar region that claimed more than 2,200 lives last month. Of the 1,000 inhabitants, some 60 lost their lives and about 130 suffered injuries when their homes – made of stone, clay or mud – crumbled as the earth shook on the night of 31 August.
An ICRC team managed to reach the village days after the earthquake and witnessed the scale of the destruction. Communities continue to live in makeshift camps under very difficult conditions, lacking essentials such as food, water and basic health care. Many are traumatized and fear going back to their ruined homes because of the danger that aftershocks will cause buildings to collapse further.
Dawood Shah lost nine members of his family in the quake, including his wife, children, mother and brother. “People don’t have houses anymore. They don’t have food,” he said. “Everything that was there is now under the rubble. There is nothing left now.”
First-responders recounted how getting help to those buried and injured by the quake was made harder by landslides damaging the region’s already limited road network.
“We had to walk for three hours and when we reached the affected area the scene looked like Judgement Day,” said Assadullah, a resident of Dara Noor district. In some cases, helicopters became the only way to ferry people in need of urgent care to hospitals, he said. “The clinic is far from our area, it takes about one hour to reach it.”
The ICRC’s response included bringing donated medical supplies such as dressing packages and oral and intravenous kits, crutches and wheelchairs to regional hospitals in Nangarhar and Kunar that have received an influx of hundreds of injured patients. It is also providing vehicles to the Kabul ambulance department that is part of the emergency response, as well as equipment and supplies to the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) Eastern region branch. One of the ARCS’s mobile teams provides basic health services to remote areas in Nurgal district once a week.
“So far we have helped around 1,100 injured people from the earthquake alone,” said Fahimullah, head of Nangarhar hospital. Some patients require long-term care due to arm, leg or spinal fractures, he added. “They will stay in neurosurgery, orthopaedic and general surgery wards to receive treatment.”
The ICRC’s physical rehabilitation center in Jalalabad branched out to the main hospitals in Nangahar and Kunar with male and female teams to provide physical therapy for survivors of the earthquake. This is an essential service that is often not prioritized as part of medical treatment in Afghanistan and can help prevent long-term complications for major trauma and spinal cord injuries.
In addition to the loss of life, many people face severe economic hardship ahead. Most people in Masoud depended on livestock for their livelihood, which is now at risk because so many of their cows and goats were killed in the disaster. Water pipes and canals have also been destroyed by the quake, while supplies of food and shelter material are limited. Like in other villages, women and children could be seen begging by the side of the road.
“These communities here that have suffered so much need humanitarian support,” said Achille Després, a member of the ICRC team that visited Nurgal district in Kunar region, noting that the earthquake follows decades of armed conflict and the impacts of climate change already affecting people in eastern Afghanistan.| ICRC / BNN Integrated News
