Rescue work continues in Afghanistan after the devastating earthquake
In northern Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, earthquakes are frequent, especially in the area of the Hindu Kush mountain range, where tectonic plates – Eurasian and Indian – meet.
Damage and loss of life there tends to be high due to the instability of buildings. In the last ten years, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 7,000 people have died in earthquakes in Afghanistan.
Eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province and the adjacent Khost province have the highest number of confirmed victims. The UN is trying to provide food aid and shelter to survivors.
Rescue work is complicated by heavy rain and inaccessible terrain. Rescuers and survivors told the BBC that near the earthquake’s epicenter were fallen telephone towers and completely destroyed villages and roads. They fear that the death toll will rise.
