KABUL (Reuters/AP) – Aftershocks
continue to be felt in the area hit by a deadly earthquake in Afghanistan last week and the area remains unsafe for survivors, a senior Afghan official says.
Afghanistan’s most destructive earthquake in decades struck a remote southeastern region near the Pakistani border on Wednesday last week, killing at least 1000 people, injuring 3000 and destroying 10,000 homes.
“The place is not safe yet,” Afghanistan acting Minister of Public Health Qalandar Ibad told a news conference in Kabul, adding that tremors continued to be felt in the area.
Aftershocks on Friday killed five people and injured 11. There are no reports of injuries in the later tremors reported by Ibad.
He said structures partially damaged in the main shock are not liveable, and people had to live in tents.
On the other hand, he said the mercury would drop fast in comings weeks in the mountains and this presented a fresh challenge for authorities.
“People do not have shelters - elders, children. ... We ask the international community to pay attention,” he said.
The death toll of children in last week’s devastating earthquake has risen to at least 155, the United Nations said.
The UN’s humanitarian coordination organization, OCHA, said on Sunday that another 250 children were injured in the magnitude 6 temblor. Most of the children died in Paktika’s hard-hit Gayan district, which remains a scene of life in ruins, days after the quake.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have put the total death toll from the quake at 1,150, with hundreds more injured, while the UN has offered a slightly lower estimate of 770, although the world body has warned the figure could still rise.
The disaster — the latest to convulse Afghanistan after decades of war, hunger, poverty and an economic crash — has become a test of the Taliban’s capacity to govern and the international community’s willingness to help.
When the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan as the United States and its NATO allies were withdrawing their forces last August, foreign aid stopped practically overnight. World governments piled on sanctions, halted bank transfers and froze billions more in Afghanistan’s currency reserves, refusing to recognize the Taliban government and demanding they allow a more inclusive rule and respect human rights.