PM Shehbaz, COAS express grief
An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 killed over 1,000 people in Afghanistan early on Wednesday, disaster management officials said, with more than 1,500 injured and the toll expected to grow as information trickles in from remote mountain villages.
Photographs on Afghan media showed houses reduced to rubble, with bodies swathed in blankets lying on the ground.
Helicopters were deployed in the rescue effort to reach the injured and fly in medical supplies and food, said an interior ministry official, Salahuddin Ayubi.
“The death toll is likely to rise as some of the villages are in remote areas in the mountains and it will take some time to collect details.”
Most of the confirmed deaths were in the eastern province of Paktika, where 255 people were killed and more than 200 injured, Ayubi added. In the province of Khost, 25 were dead and 90 had been taken to hospital.
“The number is increasing. People are digging grave after grave,” Mohammad Amin Huzaifa, head of the Information and Culture Department in Paktika, said in a message to journalists. Haibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the ruling Taliban, offered his condolences in a statement. An Afghan foreign ministry spokesman said they would welcome help from any international organisation. The Taliban appealed for international help for the rescue effort as pictures showed landslides and ruined mud-built homes in the province of Paktika.
Taliban officials asked the UN to “support them in terms of assessing the needs and responding to those affected”, Sam Mort from Unicef’s Kabul unit told the BBC. The UK’s special representative to Afghanistan, Nigel Casey, said the UK was in touch with the UN and was “ready to contribute to the international response”. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday expressed grief over the loss of lives due to the earthquake in Afghanistan and vowed to provide relief assistance to the affected people.
He said Pakistan would provide all possible assistance to the people of Afghanistan.”We are with our Afghan brothers and sisters in this difficult time,” he remarked.
Shehbaz said he had issued directives to the Pakistani authorities concerned to provide necessary relief assistance to the government of Afghanistan. “We are deeply saddened by the damage caused by the earthquake, especially in the Paktika region,” he said. The prime minister prayed for those who lost their lives and expressed sympathy with the affected families. Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb Wednesday said relief goods were being dispatched to Afghanistan immediately for the victims of earthquake. The Pakistan Army has taken urgent measures for the earthquake affectees of North Waziristan in Afghanistan after the calamity in the neighbouring country killed more than 1,000 people and injured 1,500 others.
