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With little aid, Afghanistan’s quakes spell ‘inter-generational’ crisis
Earthquakes that flattened villages in eastern Afghanistan on August 31, destroyed homes and livestock, the only assets owned by most families, and left survivors with almost nothing to rebuild as aid runs thin, Reuters reported on Thursday.
At least 2,200 people were killed and more than half a million affected when a powerful earthquake struck the region on the night of August 31 followed by a series of strong aftershocks. The quakes have left tens of thousands of people homeless, with some fearing further landslides.
Abdul Ghafar, 52, has been living with his family of 10 under a tarpaulin in Bamba Kot, a village in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, since the quakes struck. The walls of his stone house are cracked, ceilings have collapsed and rubble covers the floor, forcing the family to sleep outside.
“We only need one tent,” he said, adding that officials refused to register his damaged house as uninhabitable.
For many families in rural Afghanistan, homes, land and livestock are all they can call their own.
“In Afghanistan, households store wealth in homes, land and livestock, so when earthquakes destroy these assets, entire balance sheets collapse overnight,” said Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who specialises in governance in fragile states.
Stephen Rodriques, UNDP’s Resident Representative in Afghanistan, said more than 1.3 million animals were affected in the worst-hit Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, with grain stores and irrigation systems destroyed, threatening food supplies and the next planting season.
More than 7,000 livestock were killed and seven irrigation systems destroyed, with others damaged, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“When those inputs vanish, you see less production, higher food prices and long-term harm to nutrition and health, especially for the poorest households,” said Ilan Noy, chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change at Victoria University in Wellington.
“Without financing, the recovery will take much longer, and will create long-term cascades of consequences from this event that can continue for a very long time, possibly inter-generationally,” he said.
Looming winter raises further concerns
IEA authorities say more than 6,700 homes were destroyed and that families remain in tents as aftershocks persist.
Thomas Barfield, author and president of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, said the coming winter would worsen the crisis and that decades of war and migration mean fewer relatives remain to help rebuild.
The quakes add gloom to an economy battered by sanctions, frozen assets and aid cuts since the IEA takeover in 2021, while over 2 million deportations from Pakistan and Iran this year have further strained food and housing.
“Construction was a huge employer that disappeared after the Taliban (IEA) takeover, the NGO sector is shrinking with aid cuts, and even the public sector is under strain,” said Ibraheem Bahiss of the International Crisis Group.
“Every year brings droughts and floods, and now earthquakes on top of that, compounding the tragedy Afghans face.”
The United Nations has appealed for $140 million in aid, but pledges lag as donors focus on Gaza and Ukraine and resist funding the IEA because of its curbs on women aid workers.
Some aid has trickled in following the earthquake, from tents to food supplies, but it is not nearly enough, analysts said.
“Emergency aid is a wet towel in a forest fire, it won’t bridge the gap,” said Obaidullah Baheer, an adjunct lecturer at a university in Kabul. He warned that aid flows have already dropped steeply in a country reliant on them for two decades, and that “the real impact will only start to show next year.”
An earthquake of magnitude 5.3 struck Afghanistan on Friday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The quake occurred at 10:09 local time at a depth of 35 km, USGS said.
Its epicentre was 25 kilometres from Nahrin district of Baghlan province in north Afghanistan.
Chairman of U.S. House intelligence committee, Rick Crawford, has criticized the Biden administration’s handling of Afghan admissions to the United States following the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In a statement, Crawford said that alongside large numbers of migrants entering through the U.S. southern border, approximately 190,000 Afghan nationals were granted entry under Operation Allies Welcome after the U.S. military withdrawal. He claimed that many of those admitted lacked proper documentation and, in some cases, were allowed into the country without comprehensive biometric data being collected.
Crawford said that the United States had a duty to protect Afghans who worked alongside U.S. forces and institutions during the two-decade conflict. However, he argued that the rapid and poorly coordinated nature of the withdrawal created conditions that overwhelmed existing screening and vetting systems.
“The rushed and poorly planned withdrawal created a perfect storm,” Crawford said, asserting that it compromised the government’s ability to fully assess who was being admitted into the country.
He said that there 18,000 known or suspected terrorists in the U.S.
“Today, I look forward to getting a better understanding of the domestic counterterrorism picture, and hearing how the interagency is working to find, monitor, prosecute, and deport known or suspected terrorists that never should have entered our country to begin with,” he said.
The Biden administration has previously defended Operation Allies Welcome, stating that multiple layers of security screening were conducted in coordination with U.S. intelligence, defense, and homeland security agencies. Nonetheless, the evacuation and resettlement of Afghan nationals remains a contentious political issue, particularly amid broader debates over immigration and border security.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration recently ordered its diplomats worldwide to stop processing visas for Afghan nationals, effectively suspending the special immigration program for Afghans who helped the United States during its 20-year-long occupation of their home country.
The decision came after a former member of one of Afghanistan’s CIA-backed units was accused of shooting two U.S. National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C.
Mohammad Fasihuddin Fitrat, Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces, says that over the past four years, the army forces of the Islamic Emirate have shown no hesitation in defending and protecting Afghanistan, and that today the country’s army is standing on its own feet.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Defense, Fitrat made these remarks at a meeting with media representatives, political analysts, and a number of government officials aimed at coordination and strengthening cooperation. He added: “Nations that cannot stand on their own feet and rely on others, even if they grow, will not be capable of achieving real progress.”
Fitrat also expressed appreciation for the role of the media in ensuring security and in supporting the country’s defense forces, stating: “We and you, as citizens of this land, must put our hands together and build the country together, take pride in our forces, and strive with all our strength for the country’s development. We have created an army that defends honor, territorial integrity, and the borders of the country, and serves as the guardian of our freedom.”
He emphasized that the Islamic Emirate is working to establish an army equipped with modern weapons so that it can defend the country’s territory under all circumstances.
He stated that the country’s army has proven to the people that anyone who looks at this land with ill intent will face a firm and courageous response, and that it has also been made clear to neighboring countries that any aggression against Afghanistan will be met with a response several times stronger.
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