“The natural disaster has destroyed or damaged thousands of homes, so people are going to need our support rebuilding houses and their livelihoods”.
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Almost 200 people died, including 12 school girls, and over 1,000 were injured after a 7.5-magnitude natural disaster hit Afghanistan’s northeastern region, which also rattled people in Pakistan, India and Tajikistan, Xinhua reported.
Inayatullah Khnan, the minister for local government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the worst-affected of Pakistan’s provinces, said he was receiving “bad news” from Upper Chitral, Dir and Shangla.
In Gandao village in Shangla the quake left homes completely flattened or riddled with cracks, forcing most of the population to camp out in the open amid freezing winter rain.
The military has also sent medical teams, tents and rations to affected areas.
The insurgents captured the Darqad district in the northern Takhar province after about six hours of fighting overnight, Reuters cited Abdul Khalil Asir, a spokesman for the Takhar police chief, as saying.
More than 2,000 people were injured in Monday’s temblor, which also damaged more than 4,000 homes in Pakistan, officials said.
“We are extremely concerned for the safety and wellbeing of children, who are already the most at risk in any disaster and are now in danger of succumbing to the elements as temperatures plummet”, says Karin Hulshof, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia.
“All aid provided to families have been from our stock and the national or worldwide aid agencies available in Kunar”, Kalamzai said.
In one of the most horrifying incidents to emerge so far, a dozen Afghan schoolgirls were trampled to death as they rushed to escape their classrooms in remote northern Takhar province when the quake struck.
Rescue teams and aid are being flown in by helicopters and wounded survivors are being flown out, said Gul Ahmad Bedar, Deputy governor of Badakhshan province, the epicenter of Monday’s quake.
But the Taliban, which have driven their campaign against the Western-backed government in Kabul across the country this year, indicated they would not stand in the way of aid efforts and ordered fighters to help victims.
The US Geological Survey said seven aftershocks followed the magnitude 7.5 quake.
In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S. Agency for worldwide Development was ready to provide emergency shelter and relief supply kits.
Badakhshan is one of the poorest areas of Afghanistan and frequently hit by floods, snowstorms and mudslides.
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The tremors brought back nightmarish memories of the magnitude-7.6 quake that hit Kashmir in 2005, killing more than 70,000 people and rattling cities across the region.
