Death toll from earthquake in Afghanistan rises to 900
An injured person is carried to a military helicopter that landed to evacuate injured victims of an earthquake that killed many people and destroyed villages in eastern Afghanistan, in Mazar Dara, Kunar province, Monday, Sept. 1, 2025.
The death toll from a strong earthquake in Afghanistan’s east rose to1124, with 3,000 people injured, an official said Tuesday as rescue teams scoured the area for survivors.
The death toll has been confirmed by the Afghan Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian group working in the region.
At least 3,251 people have been injured and more than 8,000 houses have been destroyed in the disaster, the group said.
The 6.0 magnitude quake struck late Sunday night in a mountainous region, flattening villages and leaving people trapped under rubble for hours.
Rescuers are desperately searching for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened by an earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 1,100 people.
The magnitude 6.0 earthquake, followed by at least five aftershocks, hit remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan about midnight on Sunday.
The head of the Kunar Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said on Tuesday that “operations continued throughout the night.”
He said there were “still injured people left in the distant villages” in need of evacuation to hospitals. Villagers joined the rescue efforts, using their bare hands to clear debris from simple mud and stone homes built into steep valleys.
Some of the hardest-hit villages remain inaccessible due to blocked roads, said the UN migration agency. The earthquake epicenter was about 27km from Jalalabad, according to the USGS, which said it struck at a shallow 8km below the Earth’s surface.
On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that the organisation was working with authorities to “swiftly assess needs, provide emergency assistance and stand ready to mobilise additional support”, while announcing an initial $5m in aid.
“The injured are being evacuated, so these figures may change significantly,” Yousaf Hammad, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, told The Associated Press.
“The earthquake caused landslides in some areas, blocking roads, but they have been reopened, and the remaining roads will be reopened to allow access to areas that were difficult to reach.”
