AFGHANISTAN’S MOMENT OF DEEP FRAGILITY
The Taliban authorities – whose regime is formally recognised only by Russia – have called for international assistance. In response, the United Nations has released emergency funds, and the United Kingdom has announced £1 million (US$1.35 million) in aid. Australia, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and several other countries have pledged some humanitarian assistance.
But many traditional donors – most notably the United States – remain on the sidelines.
The shallow depth of the quake, at only eight kilometres beneath the surface, made it particularly destructive. Survivors described frantically digging neighbours out of collapsed mud-brick homes in the middle of the night. The tremors rippled to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, but without significant casualties reported.
Afghanistan sits atop active seismic fault lines. In 2023, three quakes in Herat province in the West killed nearly 1,300 people. In 2022, a temblor in the southeast killed at least 1,000, with Taliban officials claiming more than 4,000 fatalities. The country’s broken, fragile infrastructure and widespread poverty magnify the impact.
The latest earthquake has struck Afghanistan at a moment of deep fragility. Since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, global assistance has steadily declined, largely in response to the regime’s harsh restrictions on women’s rights, including the ban on girls’ education.
The United States, once the country’s biggest donor, has cut nearly all of its support, while European nations have also scaled back. By 2025, less than one-third of Afghanistan’s humanitarian needs will be met, even as more than half of the country’s 42 million people depend on aid for survival, according to the United Nations.
The strain is worsened by the mass returns of Afghan refugees. In recent months, more than two million people have been expelled or pressured to leave neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, swelling the number of those in need just as donor support declines. Many were on the move back into Afghanistan when the quake struck.
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