Rescue teams in Afghanistan are racing against time after a series of powerful earthquakes devastated the country’s mountainous eastern provinces, leaving more than 2,200 people dead and thousands more injured. The disaster, which struck on Sunday, September 1, 2025, has compounded an already dire humanitarian crisis in a nation battered by decades of war, poverty, and international isolation.
The initial 6.0-magnitude quake hit at a shallow depth of just 10 kilometers, rocking the provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar near the Pakistan border. According to Reuters, entire villages were leveled, with mud-brick homes collapsing on sleeping families. Many survivors, like Aalem Jan from Kunar, have been left with nothing. “Everything we had has been destroyed,” Jan told Reuters. “The only remaining things are these clothes on our backs.” His family, like countless others, now sits under trees with their few salvaged belongings, waiting for help to arrive.
As if the first quake wasn’t enough, a second tremor measuring 5.5 struck on Tuesday, September 3, triggering rockslides and further hampering rescue efforts. Roads to remote villages were cut off, and aftershocks continued to send frightened residents fleeing into open fields. “Everyone is afraid and there are many aftershocks,” Awrangzeeb Noori from Darai Nur in Nangarhar province told AFP. “We spend all day and night in the field without shelter.”
By Thursday, September 4, the Taliban administration reported that the confirmed death toll had reached 2,205, with at least 3,640 injured. Aid agencies estimate that up to 84,000 people have been directly or indirectly affected, and thousands have been displaced. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) described humanitarian needs as “vast and growing rapidly.” In some Kunar villages, up to 98% of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to an assessment by Islamic Relief Worldwide.
Visuals from Reuters and AFP paint a grim picture: families digging through rubble with their bare hands, carrying bodies on woven stretchers, and digging graves with pickaxes. Trucks loaded with sacks of flour and men with shovels have been seen making their way up treacherous mountain roads. Where helicopters couldn’t land, authorities airdropped commando forces to assist with rescue operations. The Taliban government’s defense ministry organized 155 helicopter flights over two days, evacuating approximately 2,000 injured people and their relatives to regional hospitals. Coordination camps have been set up in Khas Kunar district and near the quake’s epicenter to oversee the transfer of injured, burials, and rescue operations, according to Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat.
But the scale of destruction and the remoteness of the region have made relief efforts painfully slow. Aid workers report having to walk for hours to reach cut-off villages, with landslides and rockfalls blocking roads. The United Nations warned that many survivors remain trapped under collapsed homes, and the window for finding them alive is closing rapidly. “Every hour counts,” said Jamshed Tanoli, WHO’s emergency team lead in Afghanistan. “Hospitals are struggling, families are grieving and survivors have lost everything.”
The earthquakes have come on top of a series of ongoing crises. Afghanistan is still reeling from a magnitude 6.3 quake that struck Herat in October 2023, killing more than 1,500 people and destroying at least 63,000 homes. The country faces persistent food insecurity, drought, and the return of about 2 million refugees from neighboring Pakistan and Iran. “The earthquake is not a stand-alone disaster,” said Jacopo Caridi, country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “It hit communities that were already struggling with displacement, food insecurity, drought, and the return of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from neighboring countries.”
Complicating matters further are deep cuts to foreign aid since the Taliban seized power in 2021. The Norwegian Refugee Council, for example, now has fewer than 450 staff in Afghanistan, compared to 1,100 during the last major quake in 2023. “We have only $100,000 available to support emergency response efforts. This leaves an immediate funding gap of $1.9 million,” said Maisam Shafiey, the council’s communications and advocacy adviser. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization highlighted a critical funding gap of $3 million, saying it was essential to keep medicines, trauma kits, and other vital supplies flowing amid rising demand. The U.N. World Food Programme warned that it has enough resources to support survivors for only about four more weeks, according to its country head John Aylieff.
Afghanistan’s isolation on the world stage has only made matters worse. U.S. funding cuts and donor frustration over the Taliban’s restrictive policies—especially those limiting the work of women and aid workers—have left the country with dwindling resources to respond to disasters. “The earthquake should serve as a stark reminder: Afghanistan cannot be left to face one crisis after another alone,” Caridi said.
Despite the challenges, local authorities and international organizations are doing what they can. Tents have been set up for displaced families, and the delivery of first aid and emergency supplies is ongoing. But with harsh weather on the horizon and so many homes reduced to rubble, the future for survivors looks bleak. Many families are still too afraid to return to their houses, preferring to sleep outdoors as aftershocks continue at regular intervals. Homes made mostly of dry masonry, stone, and timber offer little protection against such powerful tremors, especially in ground left unstable by days of heavy rain, as noted by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
According to United Nations refugee chief Filippo Grandi, more than 500,000 people in eastern Afghanistan have been affected by the catastrophe. The World Health Organization has intensified its emergency response, seeking $4 million to deliver essential health interventions and expand mobile services. But with the country’s economy in tatters and donor fatigue setting in, the road to recovery will be long and fraught with difficulty.
For now, the focus remains on saving as many lives as possible and ensuring that survivors receive the food, shelter, and medical care they desperately need. As Jan, the survivor from Kunar, put it, “Our house collapsed, and all our belongings and possessions were lost.” For thousands of Afghans, the struggle to rebuild has only just begun.