Afghanistan was already facing severe crises when it was rocked by another devastating earthquake, but this time there are fewer resources to muster after foreign funding was slashed to the bone this year.Less international aid “means fewer ambulances, fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer midwives” to send into the battered farming communities of Afghanistan’s mountainous east, said Arthur Comon, deputy director of operations at the non-governmental group Premiere Urgence Internationale (PUI).The humanitarian sector has issued repeated calls since the start of the year for help in Afghanistan, which faces soaring poverty, worsening drought and the mass return of migrants expelled from neighbouring countries.The 6.0-magnitude earthquake that struck around midnight on Sunday killed more than 1,400 people and injured over 3,000, a toll that was still rising.It hit “in the very worst moment”, said Rahmat Nabi Shirzad, communications officer for the UK-based NGO Islamic Relief in Afghanistan.”The impact of these global cuts to humanitarian aid is very clear,” especially in health services for the hardest-hit province of Kunar, said Shirzad, who was also on the ground after deadly earthquakes in Herat province in 2023 and Paktika in 2022. Compared to the support provided after those disasters, the resources for Kunar are “not at that level”.- ‘Already bled dry’ -“This earthquake is a crisis within a crisis,” United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte told AFP.”Survivors now face overcrowded clinics, long waits and severe shortages of doctors and medicines — just when emergency trauma care is needed most.”Funding cuts forced the closure of 400 health facilities, Ratwatte said.The United States had been Afghanistan’s main donor, providing $3.71 billion in aid since the Taliban takeover in 2021. It cut all but a sliver of funding in January.”The Americans had put the country on a drip feed, and then pulled it out before the patient was healed,” said a source at a French NGO. “The earthquake is now ravaging a population that was already bled dry.”Beyond Washington, the UN said in June that it was drastically scaling back global humanitarian aid due to the “deepest funding cuts ever”.Afghanistan’s aid had already been dwindling as donors hesitated, in part due to the Taliban’s restrictions on women. A senior official in the Taliban’s information and culture ministry called on the international community to help.”We are providing basic services… but the rehabilitation of those impacted and reconstruction of their homes is not in the capacity of the Islamic Emirate alone,” said Atiqullah Azizi. Half of Afghanistan’s 48 million people are already in need of humanitarian aid, one in five goes hungry, and 3.5 million children under five are acutely malnourished, according to the UN. The earthquake is “a key moment to see how donors react”, International Rescue Committee’s Vice President of Emergencies Bob Kitchen told AFP. “What comes next will be very different — we would ordinarily be already on the phone to US government colleagues,” working to deploy funding for the earthquake response, he said.- ‘Lost interest in Afghanistan’ -PUI’s Comon said it was “unlikely” that new funding would be secured for the post-earthquake response beyond perhaps only “small top-ups to cover the most urgent needs”.The French NGO, which closed 60 health centres and laid off 480 staff this year after the US cuts, has deployed mobile clinics in the quake-hit provinces but fears for the long term.”It’s been a long time since the general public lost interest in Afghanistan,” the staff member said, adding that he hopes for aid from the European Union but expects little from the Americans, who are “completely out of the picture”.UN agencies have launched fundraising appeals, and an initial $5 million has been released from the emergency response fund.But even before the earthquake, the UN estimated it had only $606 million available for its operations across Afghanistan out of the $2.79 billion required. “With these cuts, we are being forced to make ever-tougher choices, concentrating scarce resources on those most vulnerable, while leaving many needs unmet,” Ratwatte said.

A powerful earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan at the weekend killed more 1,400 and injured 3,000 others, the Taliban government said Tuesday, making it one of the deadliest to hit the country in decades.The casualty toll has mounted steadily since the 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit late Sunday night, devastating remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan. Chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X Tuesday that 1,411 people were killed and 3,124 people were injured in the hard-hit province of Kunar alone. Another dozen people were killed and hundreds injured in neighbouring Nangarhar province.The earthquake could impact “hundreds of thousands”, said United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan Indrika Ratwatte.Rescuers were still desperately searching Tuesday for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened in Kunar.Emergency “operations continued throughout the night”, the head of the Kunar Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told AFP.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 mud and stone homes built into steep valleys.Obaidullah Stoman, 26, who travelled to the village of Wadir to search for a friend, was overwhelmed by the level of destruction.”I’m searching here, but I didn’t see him. It was very difficult for me to see the conditions here,” he told AFP.”There is only rubble left.”The dead, including children, were wrapped in white shrouds by villagers who prayed over their bodies before burying them.Some of the hardest-hit villages remain inaccessible due to blocked roads, the UN migration agency told AFP.The earthquake epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the US Geological Survey, which said it struck just eight kilometres below the Earth’s surface.Such relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in low-rise, mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.After decades of conflict, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, facing a protracted humanitarian crisis and the influx of millions of Afghans forced back to the country by neighbours Pakistan and Iran in recent years.Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, foreign aid to the country has been slashed, undermining the already impoverished nation’s ability to respond to disasters.The United States was the largest aid donor until early 2025, when all but a sliver of funds were cancelled after President Donald Trump took office.In June, the United Nations said it was drastically scaling back its global humanitarian aid plans due to the “deepest funding cuts ever”.On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement the organisation was working with authorities to “swiftly assess needs, provide emergency assistance and stand ready to mobilise additional support”, and announced an initial $5 million.- ‘Whole house collapsed’ -Many of those living in the quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans who have returned to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years.Helicopters shuttled the injured from the remote village of Wadir in Nurgal district to hospitals in the nearest city, Jalalabad.Fourteen-year-old Akhlaq was injured and evacuated to the hospital, but five members of his family were killed when the earthquake shook Nurgal. “Our whole house collapsed, my brothers and father were all buried. Only I survived and made it out,” he told AFP. “Then I heard my father’s voice and I managed to rescue him.” “There are victims who are still under the rubble, but there is nobody to help them and pull them out.”Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.In October 2023, western Herat province was devastated by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.