A preliminary United Nations assessment of Afghanistan’s Aug. 31 earthquake found 5,230 homes destroyed and 672 damaged in 49 villages, but U.N. teams have been unable to reach 362 other affected villages in the country’s remote east.
The 6.0-magnitude quake has killed at least 2,200 people, a toll that officials warn could rise as recovery teams reach more isolated areas. The U.N. estimates up to 500,000 people have been affected, more than half of them children, and including some Afghans recently returned from neighboring Pakistan and Iran.
Shannon O’Hara, coordination chief for the U.N. humanitarian office in Afghanistan, said damaged roads through the rugged, mountainous terrain and a series of strong aftershocks have hampered access and assessment efforts. She told U.N. journalists the team spent more than six and a half hours traveling from Jalalabad, the largest city near the quake zone, to reach the worst-hit area roughly 100 kilometers away on a narrow single-lane track often blocked by landslides and rockfall.
“As we drove towards the epicenter, we saw families walking in the opposite direction — displaced, carrying what little they could. Many were still wearing the same clothes from the night of the earthquake,” O’Hara said. “Mothers and fathers were carrying their children, some with fresh bandages covering their injuries.”
O’Hara said the devastation intensified closer to the epicenter, with entire villages flattened and the overpowering smell of dead animals. Some families are living in crowded tents while many others sleep in the open, exposed to rain and cold. She reported no clean drinking water and virtually no sanitation in surveyed communities, noting the region already contends with endemic cholera and that initial assessments indicated 92% of the communities surveyed practice open defecation.
“The potential for a cholera outbreak is alarming,” O’Hara said. She urged immediate delivery of clean water, food, tents, latrines and warm clothing as winter snows approach at the end of October, saying, “If we don't act now, these communities may not survive the coming winter.”
U.N. officials warned that further rainfall could trigger flash floods in valleys where displaced people have been sheltering and that additional aftershocks could cause more landslides and cut off access to communities still near the epicenter. The U.N. said it will issue an emergency funding appeal to secure resources for life-saving assistance.
Taliban authorities led search-and-rescue operations in the aftermath and, according to O’Hara, have not presented major obstructions to humanitarian work. She said the U.N. has sought to include women in health teams and aid distribution, and reported no instances of women being left behind by male-only rescue efforts.
The U.N. assessment covers only a fraction of the 441 villages believed to be affected in the area, underscoring the scale of the challenge in reaching remote communities. Relief agencies face a narrow operational window before winter weather further isolates the mountain valleys and complicates delivery of urgent humanitarian aid.