KABUL: According to a senior official, Afghanistan lacks the medical equipment necessary to treat those hurt in the earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people this week and left five more dead on Friday.
Officials had previously called off their search for survivors of the early Wednesday morning earthquake that had a magnitude of 6.1 near the Pakistani border, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kabul, the country’s capital.
The earthquake on Friday occurred almost exactly in the same location and was magnitude 4.3, according to the US Geological Survey. There was no immediate information on the degree of additional damage or injuries, but a health ministry official reported that it killed five people.
The United Nations said on Friday that a total of 1,036 deaths have been officially confirmed.
According to Mohammad Nassim Haqqani, a spokesperson for Afghanistan’s disaster ministry, the earthquake on Wednesday left some 2,000 people injured and 10,000 homes completely or partially demolished.
He said that the health ministry lacked sufficient medication. It’s a major calamity, thus we need medical assistance and other essentials.
The earthquake’s epicentre occurred in an area of dry mountains populated with small communities that frequently saw fighting during Afghanistan’s decades-long war.
Relief operations have been impeded in a nation dealing with a humanitarian catastrophe that drastically worsened after the Taliban took control last August when US-led international forces withdrew due to poor connectivity and very primitive roads.