Night-time quake flattens villages across Afghanistan’s east
A powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan late on August 31, jolting people out of bed and turning entire clusters of homes into rubble. The tremor hit at about 11:47 p.m. local time, a brutal hour when most families were asleep. By Monday, authorities said at least 1,109 people had been killed and another 2,938 injured, and they warned the numbers could climb as rescue teams reach cut-off areas.
Officials said the quake’s epicenter was roughly 17 miles east of Jalalabad, not far from the Pakistan border. The worst damage was reported in Kunar Province, where most of the deaths occurred, with additional casualties in neighboring Nangarhar. The impact spread far beyond the epicenter: towns and villages up to 100 miles away felt the shaking, and residents in the city of Jalalabad, home to around 200,000 people, rushed into the streets.
“We are still pulling people out from collapsed homes,” said Shah Mahmood, a Taliban official in Nangarhar, who put the death toll at 1,109 and injuries at 2,938. Authorities estimate about 8,000 houses were destroyed or badly damaged, leaving thousands of families without shelter.
The timing worsened the outcome. Night-time quakes kill more people because they strike when families are indoors, surrounded by heavy walls and roofs. In eastern Afghanistan, many homes are built from mud brick and timber—materials that crumble easily when the ground heaves. Entire compounds caved in, burying sleepers beneath thick earthen roofs.
Aftershocks rattled the region through the night, scaring survivors away from damaged buildings and complicating rescue work. Teams moved cautiously, wary that another jolt could bring weakened structures down on volunteers and relatives searching by hand.
Local clinics and hospitals in Jalalabad and district centers reported a surge of patients with fractures, head injuries, and crush trauma. With roads blocked and fuel scarce in some areas, ambulances struggled to shuttle the wounded to facilities with operating theaters. Doctors set up temporary triage points in courtyards and school grounds where they could, stabilizing patients before sending them onward.
Rescue effort hampered by landslides and shattered roads
The quake triggered landslides across steep valleys and sent rocks crashing onto narrow mountain roads. In several districts, entire sections of roadway disappeared, isolating hamlets that cling to the sides of ravines. That has slowed the most basic tasks—getting water, food, and bandages where they’re needed, and ferrying rescue crews to villages that have gone silent since the shaking.
Emergency workers and local residents are using what they have: shovels, pickaxes, and their hands. Heavy equipment is scarce, and in many places it cannot reach the debris fields even if available. Aerial support is limited, and low clouds over parts of the eastern ranges cut visibility. Every hour counts, but the terrain is unforgiving.
Authorities have prioritized opening key road corridors to reach the hardest-hit pockets of Kunar. Bulldozers are working to clear debris where it’s safe. In some places, villagers formed human chains to pass stones and broken timbers, freeing people trapped beneath roofs that pancaked. Others set up makeshift shelters out of tarpaulins and salvaged doors, racing sundown and the threat of more aftershocks.
China has pledged to help with disaster relief, according to Afghan officials, and international aid groups are moving supplies into staging areas. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has mobilized to support local response teams with emergency kits and logistics. Relief groups typically bring shelter materials, blankets, water purification tablets, trauma kits, and hygiene supplies—items that matter most in the first 72 hours after a quake.
Survivors’ immediate needs are straightforward but urgent:
- Shelter for families who lost their homes, including tents and tarps
- Clean water and sanitation to prevent disease outbreaks
- Food rations for isolated villages cut off by landslides
- Medical supplies for fractures, crush injuries, and wound care
The damage map follows the region’s fault lines and geology. Eastern Afghanistan sits at a collision zone where the Indian Plate grinds into Eurasia. That constant pressure builds stress underground, released in bursts along faults that slice beneath the Hindu Kush and surrounding ranges. The result is a long history of deadly quakes, often shallow and violent, that are especially destructive to mud-brick homes.
Afghanistan has lived this before. In June 2022, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake in the southeast killed more than a thousand people. In October 2023, a 6.3-magnitude quake in the west again pushed the toll past a thousand. The pattern is grim: moderate-to-strong quakes, shallow depth, vulnerable buildings, and remote terrain that blunts rescue efforts.
What makes the current disaster worse is the geography stacked against the response. Kunar and Nangarhar are mountainous, with settlements scattered along river valleys and high slopes. Roads snake through narrow passes where a single landslide can cut access for days. Phone service drops out in canyons, leaving families to send a motorcycle or a runner to the next village for help.
In many districts, men and older boys spent the morning lifting beams and digging with spades while women and children gathered at open fields for safety. Aid workers say people are afraid to sleep indoors. Some families who lost everything will camp in orchards and on riverbanks until they get tents or relatives can take them in. Nights can be cool at elevation even in early September, and the forecast for rain in some valleys raises the risk of fresh slides.
Local officials say they are trying to set up distribution points closer to the worst-hit communities to avoid long queues in district centers. But that needs a steady flow of fuel and trucks, and the roads are unreliable. Where bridges held, small convoys are moving with caution, sometimes escorted to manage crowding and keep lanes clear for ambulances.
Hundreds of volunteers poured in from nearby districts at first light, many riding motorbikes loaded with blankets, bread, and bottled water. Mosque loudspeakers called for blood donors. The response in the first 24 hours is often neighbor-to-neighbor—people who know every footpath and can reach courtyards that larger teams might miss.
The quake was felt across the border, and the borderlands add complexity to the relief effort. Trade routes and family ties cross the Durand Line, and informal aid often moves that way when formal channels are slow. Coordinating that flow—so help gets to the right valleys and not just to the easiest checkpoints—will be a challenge in the days ahead.
Structural engineers point to familiar fixes that can save lives in future quakes: tying roof beams, reinforcing walls with timber or steel bands, and using better mortar between mud bricks. These changes are not expensive on paper, but they require training, materials, and time—luxuries in regions where families build homes with what they can gather from the land. Recovery plans that include safer rebuilding can reduce the toll when the ground shakes again.
For now, the focus is search and rescue. Teams are listening for tapping from voids under rubble and using simple tools to avoid causing more collapses. The window to find survivors narrows with each passing hour, but rescue workers say people can survive for days if pockets of air remain and nights are not too cold. Water, even a bottle passed through a crack, makes a difference.
Authorities urged people to stay clear of damaged buildings and to expect aftershocks. In quake zones with earthen homes, even light tremors can trigger secondary collapses. Families are told to mark dangerous walls with fabric or paint so children keep away, and to boil water where pipelines or wells may have been contaminated by burst sewage lines.
As the dust settles, attention will shift to the longer slog: rehousing thousands, restoring roads and water systems, and getting children back to school. Farmers will want to salvage equipment and seed before the autumn planting season slips by. The cost will be measured in years, not months.
One thing is certain: the Afghanistan earthquake was not an isolated shock. It’s part of a seismic story written by the mountains themselves, a reminder that life along the faults depends as much on what happens after the shaking stops as on what happens during those terrifying seconds in the dark.