Aftershock raises earthquake’s death toll
GAYAN, AFGHANISTAN » An aftershock took more lives Friday and threatened to pile even more misery on an area of eastern Afghanistan reeling from a powerful earthquake that state media said killed 1,150 people this week.
Among the dead from Wednesday’s magnitude 6 quake are 121 children, but that figure is expected to climb, said Mohamed Ayoya, UNICEF’s representative in Afghanistan. He said close to 70 children were injured.
That earthquake struck a remote, mountainous region already grappling with staggering poverty at a time when the country as a whole is spiraling deeper into economic crisis after many countries pulled back critical
financing and development aid in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover. On
Friday, Pakistan’s Meteorological Department reported a new 4.2 magnitude
quake that state-run Bakhtar News Agency reported took five more lives in hard-hit Gayan District and injured 11 people.
International aid had been keeping the country afloat, and its withdrawal left millions unable to afford food and further strained already struggling medical facilities. Nearly half the population of 38 million cannot meet their basic food needs, while some civil servants, including doctors, nurses and teachers, weren’t paid for months because the Taliban government is unable to access frozen foreign reserves. Salary delays continue throughout the public sector.
Afghanistan’s international isolation is also complicating relief efforts, since fewer aid organizations have a presence in the country, and international sanctions on Afghan banks make it difficult to send cash into the country. Despite
waivers from the U.S. Treasury Department that allow money to be sent to aid groups, banks are hesitant to handle such transactions for fear of running afoul of rules anyway.
Aid groups lament that means they have to pay local staff with bags of cash, physically carried into the country by their staff, then distributed throughout the provinces in person. The process is expensive, incurring fees along the way for transport and security.
Aid organizations including the local Red Crescent and United Nations agencies like the World Food Program have sent food, tents, sleeping mats and other essentials to families in Paktika province, the epicenter of the earthquake, and neighboring Khost province. Several countries have sent cargo planes of aid.