Rescuers are working around the clock to try to save thousands that remain buried following a powerful earthquake that hit Afghanistan’s Herat province on Saturday.
Rescue workers and volunteers are working around the clock to try to dig out survivors and bodies from the ruins of the villages worst affected, 48 hours after the 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Public Health reports more than 2,500 are confirmed dead across 21 villages, but many more casualties are feared.
“Search and rescue operations remain ongoing, and the exact numbers of casualties and houses, premises, destroyed are still not fully confirmed,” a World Health Organization (WHO) official told Al Jazeera.
In the Zandehjan district, the epicentre of the quake, “100 percent of homes were totally destroyed,” according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The agency reports 1,023 dead and 1,663 injured in the district.
However, organisations and aid workers in the regional capital Herat told Al Jazeera that the casualty figures are much higher. “We have lost count,” one volunteer rescuer said.
“There are always discrepancies when issuing numbers for an event of this magnitude since verification can be challenging. But we can with some certainty say the numbers will increase dramatically as we rescue those still trapped,” said Necephor Mghendi, head of delegation at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
Source: Aljazeera.com
