Afghan women carry sacks of relief aid as they walk past makeshift tents set up in the aftermath of an earthquake at Mazar Dara village in Nurgal district, Kunar province.WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
News of the disaster spread quickly: A 6.0-magnitude earthquake had struck the mountainous eastern Afghan province of Kunar. In these tightly knit communities, people are close to relatives and neighbours. Almost right away on Aug. 31, updates went out across cellphones, WhatsApp groups and social media, particularly Facebook. Even mosque loudspeakers, normally used for the call to prayer, were used to share information.
The epicentre was the Nurgal district, home to 28,000 people. Among the first responders were people from the surrounding hilltop villages who usually come to the region to earn money, said Sayed Khan, 51, a local community leader.
“Within a few minutes, I managed to organize primary tools such as shovels, pickaxes and vehicles,” he said. “Soon, I was surrounded by many young men, and together we moved toward the affected areas.”
In the days that followed, the natural disaster – which killed 2,205 according to a Taliban government deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat and injured thousands more – made global headlines. The Taliban pleaded for help from the international community. Little arrived.
The earthquake showed that a new dynamic may be emerging out of the aid vacuum created by the West’s lack of engagement with the country. Afghans, who relied on foreign assistance for more than two decades, are now depending on their communities to survive, along with help from China and Russia, two of the few countries that have kept their embassies open in Kabul since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Most of the world, including Canada, have cut ties and withheld diplomatic recognition because of the Taliban’s widespread human-rights violations and harsh policies against women.
After the earthquake, the United Nations issued an urgent appeal for nearly US$140-million; it has raised about $40-million, with Ottawa contributing $3-million. The World Health Organization has also airlifted in 35 tonnes of medicine. The United States, which gave US$55-million after a 2022 earthquake in Afghanistan, has donated nothing.
Taliban security personnel sit over sacks of relief aid kept beside official vehicles of the United Nations.WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
In contrast, China pledged 50-million yuan ($9-million) in emergency aid, with the first shipment of tents, blankets and other essentials arriving in Kabul last Sunday. Russia also delivered humanitarian assistance: On the orders of Minister of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenko, an aircraft departed Zhukovsky Airport carrying 20 tonnes of food supplies.
Ahmad Ali Babakhail, who is leading the emergency-response team at the Afghanistan Rehabilitation and Women Education Organization, which receives funding from Qatar, said the decline in aid has a direct on effect on the lives of ordinary Afghans.
“We cannot compare the flow of assistance with previous years,” he said. Before 2021, the United States was the largest donor, contributing nearly 78 per cent of aid. In July, however, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was abolished. The public health system in Afghanistan is on the verge of collapse, with many doctors and health professionals having fled the country for fear of their lives after the West left.
And so Afghans have learned to rely more on each other.
Kunar is mountainous, remote and poor even by Afghan standards. Its forests are dense, and its many rivers, which feed the Kabul River flowing south into Pakistan, are natural obstacles. Rescue teams walked up to six hours to reach the most faraway villages, which had been cut off because of fallen rocks, Mr. Khan said. Aftershocks were another hazard.
“We did not waste a single minute,” he said. “We started rescue operations that very morning, no matter what we had.”
An injured Afghan boy stands near damaged houses after receiving first aid.SAYED HASSIB/Reuters
Adam Khan, a 67-year-old farmer, looks at damaged walls of his house following the earthquake.SAYED HASSIB/Reuters
By the next day, Taliban officials had arrived from the surrounding provinces of Nangahar, Laghman and Nuristan. The country’s Ministry of Defence posted on X that helicopters had conducted 155 flights over 72 hours, airlifting more than 2,000 people from affected areas and delivering emergency kits and food supplies. The Afghanistan National Disaster Authority, which has branches in all 34 provinces, also mobilized. A representative of the organization said its warehouse contained first-aid kits, blankets and tents, though supplies were insufficient owing to the decline in international aid.
Among the survivors of the earthquake was Ningara, a 70-year-old grandmother, who like many Afghans, only has one name. Rescuers reached her home in Kunar’s Chawkay district several hours after the quake. Until then she had listened helplessly to the cries of her sons, daughters and grandchildren, who were trapped under the debris of mud, stone and wood.
An woman cooks bread outside her damaged house.WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
“My whole life was shattered in the blink of an eye. I accepted it as the command of the Almighty Lord,” she said.
She managed to grab one of her grandson’s hands and pulled him out alive.
“I will never forget those moments,” Ningara said. “When they called out from under the rubble, I couldn’t help them.” She lost 35 family members when their house collapsed. Now she shoulders the burden of caring for surviving relatives.
Ajaba, 39, another resident of Chawkay, said she was with her five children and extended family when their home, built on a hill, caved in on top of them. Volunteer rescuers helped pull them out, but only three of her 10 relatives survived.
Her plea is simple. “If anyone can help, please rebuild a shelter for me on flat ground. I cannot go back to the place where I lost my loved ones,” she said.