AFGHANISTAN: In the wake of devastating quakes and their aftershocks that shook western Afghanistan, the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) has issued an appeal for $19 million to provide emergency aid to tens of thousands of individuals.
Ana Maria Salhuana, the deputy country director of the World Food Programme in Afghanistan, stated that they are currently assisting survivors but are in urgent need of additional funding because they are “having to take this food from an already severely underfunded programme.”
The organisation stated that it is working to deliver emergency food assistance to 100,000 people in the affected region.
“Disasters like these earthquakes pound communities that are already barely able to feed themselves back into utter destitution,” said the WFP.
Quakes felt in Afghanistan
A 6.3-magnitude earthquake jolted parts of western Afghanistan on Sunday, following a series of devastating quakes that occurred a week earlier, resulting in numerous casualties and the complete destruction of entire villages. The U.S. Geological Survey has recorded four 6.3-magnitude earthquakes in the same area in just over a week.
The initial earthquakes on October 7 caused extensive damage, particularly in Herat province, marking some of the most destructive seismic events in the country’s recent history.
In response to the initial earthquakes, the WFP deployed their staff within hours, providing affected families in the devastated villages with fortified biscuits, pulses, and other essential food items, said the organisation.
“An estimated 25,000 buildings have been destroyed. The survivors are currently sleeping in tents next to the rubble of their homes, desperate and afraid of further earthquakes and aftershocks,” the group stated in a statement.
Apart from the response to the earthquakes, the WFP is in urgent need of $400 million to stockpile food supplies before the onset of winter, which often leads to communities becoming isolated due to heavy snow and landslides. In Afghanistan, these isolated communities include women who are increasingly marginalised from public life.
The initial earthquake, along with numerous aftershocks and a third 6.3-magnitude earthquake that occurred on Wednesday, resulted in the destruction of villages, including hundreds of mud-brick homes that were unable to withstand such seismic force. This devastation also extended to schools, health clinics, and other essential village facilities.
In the aftermath of the devastation, there was little left of the villages in the dusty hills of the region, except for rubble and the solemnity of funerals. Survivors are grappling with the profound loss of multiple family members, and in many areas, survivors were outnumbered by volunteers who had arrived to search through the debris and assist in digging mass graves.
Also Read: Fresh 6.3 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Afghanistan in Days
