![]() Some urged the world to end or find ways around the financial cutoff that has wrecked the economy. Other countries sending aid have taken pains to make clear it would not go through the Taliban - reflecting the widespread reluctance to deal with Afghanistan’s new rulers.Īid groups said that while they are rushing to help the quake victims, keeping Afghanistan just above catastrophe through humanitarian programs is not sustainable. But it was not clear how long it would take to reach devastated villages. Trucks of food and other necessities arrived from Pakistan, and planes full of humanitarian aid landed from Iran, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. In one tiny hamlet seen by the AP, all 20 houses were flattened, and residents were still taking refuge in nearby forests. Still, help was slow to filter across the area. For more than 24 hours after the quake, many had been on their own, digging through the rubble by hand in search of survivors. People who had spent the past two nights sleeping outdoors in the rain erected tents in the yards of their wrecked houses. In main villages of Gayan District, residents crowded around trucks delivering aid, an Associated Press team saw Friday. Aid groups said they feared cholera could break out after damage to water and hygiene systems. In quake-hit villages, UNICEF delivered blankets, basic supplies and tarps for the homeless to use as tents. World Health Organization medical supplies were unloaded at the main hospital. Either toll would make the quake Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades.Īt Urgan, the main city in Paktika province, U.N. It’s not clear how death toll counts are being reached, given the access difficulties. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has put the death toll at 770 people. ![]() Afghanistan’s state-run Bakhtar News Agency said five people were killed and 11 injured in Gayan, a district of Paktika province that is one of the areas worst hit in Wednesday’s quake.īakhtar’s Taliban director Abdul Wahid Rayan said Friday the death toll from Wednesday had risen to 1,150 people, with at least 1,600 people injured. On Friday, Pakistan’s Meteorological Department reported a new, 4.2 magnitude quake. ![]() “It shows if you don’t have functional health system, people cannot access basic services they need, especially in these sorts of times,” Christen said. Many health facilities around the country have shut down, unable to pay personnel or obtain supplies. Some of the injured had to be taken to a hospital in Ghazni, more than 130 kilometers (80 miles) away that the ICRC has kept running by paying salaries to staff over the past months, he said. The International Red Cross has five hospitals in the region, but damage to the roads made it difficult for those in the worse-hit areas to reach them, said Lucien Christen, ICRC spokesman in Afghanistan. Rutted roads through the mountains, already slow to drive on, were made worse by quake damage and rain. The effort to help the victims has been slowed both by geography and by Afghanistan’s decimated condition. Hope and despair: Kathy Gannon on 35 years in Afghanistan
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