A powerful earthquake struck Afghanistan’s Kunar Province on August 31, killing at least 2,000 people and destroying entire villages. Remote communities like Dewagal Valley bore the brunt of the disaster, with families trapped under collapsed homes and access to aid severely limited.
Ahmad Khan Safi, a farmer who had built a 10-room mud and stone house in Dewagal Valley, described the terrifying moments as his home crumbled. “I was trapped in the mud and couldn’t breathe,” Safi told The Associated Press from a hospital in Jalalabad. He spent the night under the rubble, unsure if his family had survived. In his area alone, 130 people died, including 22 members of his own family, while 17 were injured.
The rugged terrain and lack of infrastructure have complicated rescue efforts. There are no roads suitable for vehicles or landing sites for helicopters in Dewagal Valley. Many injured people could not be reached quickly, and some succumbed to injuries before help arrived. Survivors were carried on homemade stretchers to safer locations as aid teams and Taliban authorities attempted evacuation.
The quake has affected up to 500,000 people, more than half of them children, according to the United Nations. Entire communities, including those rebuilt by Afghans forcibly returned from neighboring countries, were flattened. Landslides and floods caused by heavy rains have further worsened conditions, destroying water sources, schools, and health facilities. Only 2% of homes in Kunar remain intact, according to Islamic Relief.
Stories of loss are widespread. Ghulam Rahman from Chawkay District lost his wife and five children, surviving only alongside two of his children. Survivors live under open skies, with no shelter and scarce resources.
With families wiped out and villages reduced to dust, the human and infrastructural toll of this earthquake underscores the urgent need for aid and the challenges of reaching Afghanistan’s most isolated communities.
