As people in the country’s Herat province continue to dig through damaged buildings for their few possessions following Saturday’s earthquake, material losses seem ever less important.
ADVERTISEMENTIn the northwestern city of Herat, Afghans are trying to make sense of Saturday’s 6.3 magnitude quake which killed and injured thousands when it levelled an untold number of homes in the province.
Earlier this week, the Taliban-appointed deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Abdul Ghani Baradar, visited the quake-affected region along with his team.
They assured that they would deliver “immediate relief assistance” and ensure “equitable and accurate distribution of aid”.
In neighbouring Pakistan, too, the government has held a special session to review aid for Afghanistan, including relief teams, food, medicine, tents and blankets.
The Taliban's supreme leader, though, has yet to make any public comments about the devastation caused by the quake.
Afghanistan currently has few reliable statistics but a spokesman for Afghanistan's national disaster authority, Janan Sayiq, told reporters in Kabul that around 4,000 people were killed or injured by the disaster.
No breakdown has been provided so far, but the United Nations estimates that 1,023 people were killed and 1,663 people injured in 11 villages in the Zinda Jan region alone.
The Taliban has announced that nearly 2,000 houses in 20 villages were destroyed and the area hit by the quake has just one government-run hospital, meaning much-needed help is thin on the ground.
Saturday's epicentre was about 40 kilometres northwest of the city of Herat, the provincial capital, according to the US Geological Survey.
Several of the aftershocks have been strong, including one on Monday which caused residents of the city to flee their homes once more.
The fast-approaching winter, combined with the new disaster, is likely to exacerbate Afghanistan's existing challenges, aid groups warn.
They say it’s likely to make it even harder for people to meet their basic needs, like adequate shelter, food and medicine.
Vital infrastructure, including bridges, was destroyed too.
While emergency response teams have been deployed to provide humanitarian assistance, the global response to the quake has been slow.
Much of the world remains wary of dealing directly with the Taliban-led government and focused on the deadly escalation between Israel and the Palestinians in the aftermath of the surprise attack by Gaza militants on Saturday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has called his Afghan Taliban counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to express his condolences and "promised humanitarian aid to victims” according to reports.
Meanwhile, the justice ministry has urged national and international charity foundations, businessmen and Afghans to mobilise and gather humanitarian aid for needy people in the province.
“Due to the extent of damages and casualties caused by this incident, a large number of our compatriots in Herat province need urgent humanitarian aid," the ministry said in a statement.
ADVERTISEMENTAfghans are still reeling from further recent natural disasters.
In March, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck much of Pakistan and Afghanistan and an earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan in June 2022 - flattening stone and mud-brick homes and killing at least 1,000 people.