Afghan quake death toll tops 1,400

Aftershocks rumble quake-hit Kunar province

JALALABAD:

A fresh 5.2-magnitude earthquake hit the east of Afghanistan on Tuesday, jolting a region still struggling with the aftermath of a powerful quake at the weekend that killed 1,400 people.

The epicentre of the tremor was close to where a magnitude 6.0 earthquake hit late Sunday night, devastating remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan.

The "quake was felt in the same areas which were affected in Kunar (province) in the first earthquake," Ehsanullah Ehsan, the disaster management spokesman in the hard-hit province, told AFP.

"These aftershocks are constant, but they have not caused any casualties yet." The quake was reported by the US Geological Survey late Tuesday.

The number of victims from Sunday's earthquake has mounted steadily, with 1,411 people dead and 3,124 injured in Kunar alone, chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest to hit the country in decades.

Another dozen people were killed and hundreds injured in neighbouring Nangarhar province.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with dwindling aid since the Taliban seized power in 2021 undermining its ability to respond to disasters.

The devastation could affect "hundreds of thousands", said United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte.

Rescuers searched through the night and all day for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened in Kunar, where more than 5,400 houses were destroyed, government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said on X.

Many of the worst-affected areas were still unreachable by road, but emergency facilities were being set up and multiple countries had announced they would provide aid, Fitrat said.

The European Union said it was sending 130 tonnes of emergency supplies and providing one million euros ($1.2 million) to help victims of the deadly quake.

The bloc has become one of the key aid donors to Afghanistan after the United States — previously the country's largest aid provider — cut all but a slice of its assistance after President Donald Trump took office in January.

The aid cuts risk impeding the response to the earthquake, sector experts told AFP, in a country already facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises after decades of conflict.