RASC News Agency: The World Health Organization (WHO) has cautioned that the death toll from the catastrophic earthquake in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province may rise significantly as search-and-rescue operations continue to move at a painfully slow pace. In a statement issued on Thursday through its official X account, WHO revealed that “entire families have been buried beneath the rubble; more than 6,782 homes have been destroyed.” The organization underscored that thousands of residents have been left homeless and exposed to brutal conditions without adequate shelter, food, or medical care. Local hospitals, already crippled by shortages, are now overflowing with severely wounded patients many of whom require urgent surgeries and life-saving treatments. Aid workers warn that without rapid, large-scale international intervention, the humanitarian crisis could escalate into a full-blown disaster in the coming days.
Survivors, speaking to local Afghanistani media, described harrowing scenes in which bodies of loved ones remain trapped under collapsed structures. Families stressed that the number of available rescue teams is grossly insufficient given the scale of destruction. “We are digging with our bare hands, waiting for help that never arrives,” one grief-stricken resident told RASC News. Many have pleaded for immediate delivery of food, shelter, and medical supplies, but relief distribution remains agonizingly slow due to damaged roads, lack of coordination, and the Taliban’s administrative paralysis. Despite the urgent needs, Taliban officials have attempted to deflect attention from their failure to act. Najibullah Hanif, head of the Taliban’s Information and Culture Department in Kunar, told state-run media that rescue efforts in remote valleys were ongoing, admitting reluctantly that the number of fatalities would likely rise. He conceded that treacherous terrain and destroyed roads had obstructed operations, with some villages requiring up to six hours of walking to reach. Yet critics argue that such excuses highlight the regime’s chronic incapacity to prepare for or respond to national emergencies.
The Taliban’s official figures claim more than 1,500 dead and over 3,000 injured. However, local sources dismiss these numbers as misleading, noting that countless victims in isolated villages have been buried by relatives without ever being recorded by authorities. Villagers emphasize that the real toll is far higher, but in the absence of credible governance, registration, or systematic reporting, the scale of human loss remains obscured. Humanitarian observers stress that this tragedy once again reveals the Taliban’s fundamental inability and unwillingness to govern responsibly. Despite monopolizing power, the group has neither the logistical capacity nor the political will to mount effective relief operations. Instead, they rely on empty rhetoric, offering prayers and proclamations while abandoning desperate families to fend for themselves.
The earthquake has further exposed the fragility of life under Taliban rule: a nation already ravaged by poverty, drought, displacement, and repression, now left defenseless in the face of natural disaster. For the thousands still clawing through ruins in search of their children and relatives, the Taliban’s promises ring hollow. It is the international community, not Kabul’s rulers, that survivors now look to for genuine relief.
