Afghanistan Archives

More than 800 people have been killed and at least 2,800 injured after a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan, a spokesperson for the country’s Taliban government has said.

Health authorities in the capital Kabul, however, said the numbers could change as they worked to reach remote areas.

The earthquake struck the country’s northeastern province of Kunar near the Pakistan border at 11.47pm local time (8.17pm UK time) on Sunday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences said.

The quake’s epicentre was near Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, at a depth of 8.7 miles (14km). Jalalabad is situated about 74 miles (119km) from Kabul.

There was a second earthquake in the same province about 20 minutes later, with a magnitude of 4.5 and a depth of 6.2 miles (10km). This was later followed by a 5.2 earthquake at the same depth.

“All our… teams have been mobilised to accelerate assistance, so that comprehensive and full support can be provided,” interior ministry spokesperson Abdul Maten Qanee told Reuters news agency, citing efforts in areas from security to food and health.

Homes of mud and stone were levelled by the midnight quake and several villages completely destroyed in Kunar province, officials said.

Rescuers searched for survivors in several districts of the mountainous province where the quake hit.

Images showed helicopters ferrying aid out to the affected, and residents helping soldiers and medics carry the wounded to ambulances.

Footage from Nangarhar province showed people frantically digging through rubble with their hands, searching for loved ones in the dead of night.

Hundreds of injured people have been taken to hospital, a local official said, with figures likely to rise.

Ziaul Haq Mohammadi, a student at Al-Falah University in Jalalabad, was studying in his room at home when the quake struck. He said he was knocked over by the power of the tremor.

“We spent the whole night in fear and anxiety because at any moment another earthquake could happen,” he said.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, said: “Sadly, tonight’s earthquake has caused loss of life and property damage in some of our eastern provinces.

“Local officials and residents are currently engaged in rescue efforts for the affected people. Support teams from the centre and nearby provinces are also on their way.”

He added “all available resources will be utilised to save lives”.

According to earlier reports, 30 people were killed in a single village.

“The number of casualties and injuries is high, but since the area is difficult to access, our teams are still on site,” said health ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman.

Earlier, an Afghan foreign office spokesperson said “no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work”.

Later, India said it had delivered 1,000 family tents to Kabul and was moving 15 tonnes of food material to Kunar, with more aid to be sent on Tuesday. A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said it was ready to provide disaster relief assistance “according to Afghanistan’s needs and within its capacity”.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said its mission in Afghanistan was preparing to help those in areas devastated by the quake.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, described the disaster as “a perfect storm”.

He told Sky News: “It is very tragic. We have very little information as of yet, but already reports of hundreds of people killed and many more made homeless.

“It is a country that is already suffering from a multiplicity of crises – there is a big drought, Iran has sent back almost two million people, Pakistan is trying to do the same with Afghans living there – and of course, it is extremely difficult to mobilise resources because of the Taliban.

“It’s a perfect storm, and this earthquake, likely to have been quite devastating, is just going to add to the misery. So, a strong appeal to all of those who can help.”

Kate Carey, an officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), warned of the risk of landslides due to heavy rainfall in affected areas.

She also said the shrinking of funding for Afghanistan, led by US aid cuts, was hampering the response to the quake.

Ms Carey said: “The actual delivery of response has been badly hit by the funding cuts this year, but also the number of people we have on the ground is much less than we would have had six months ago.” (SkyNews)

The identities of more than 100 British officials, including members of the special forces and MI6, were compromised in a data breach that also put thousands of Afghans at risk of reprisal, it can be reported.

The latest fallout from the breach was kept secret by an injunction until Thursday, when the order was lifted in part by a High Court judge.

That allowed media organisations to reveal that detailed case notes in the database contained secret personal data of special forces and spies.

The government had already admitted on Tuesday the data of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had worked with the British during the 20-year war in Afghanistan and had applied to resettle in the UK had been inadvertently leaked.

Many were judged to be at risk of serious harm or even death as the Taliban sought retribution against those who had worked with the British government during the conflict.

This was part of the reason the information was protected by a so-called “super-injunction” – a kind of gagging order that prevents the reporting of even the existence of the injunction.

The data breach occurred in February 2022 but was not discovered by the government until August 2023, when someone in Afghanistan who had obtained the data posted part of it on Facebook and indicated he could release the rest.

The BBC revealed on Wednesday that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had offered to expedite a review of the individual’s application and brought him to the country after he posted the data – a sequence of events that government sources said was “essentially blackmail”.

The MoD declined to comment on the actions of the individual but said that “anyone who comes to the UK under any Afghan relocation schemes” must go through “robust security checks in order to gain entry”.

The discovery of the breach in 2023 forced the government to covertly set up the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) – a resettlement scheme for those affected, who were not told about the breach despite the risk to their security.

The scheme has already allowed 4,500 Afghans and family members to move to the UK and a further 2,400 people are expected, at an estimated cost of £850m.

The accidental leak was the result of someone working at UK Special Forces headquarters in London inadvertently emailing more than 30,000 resettlement applications to an individual outside of government, thinking that he was sending data on just 150 people.

After the lifting of the super-injunction on Tuesday, a secondary injunction had prevented the revelations about special forces and security services personal being compromised.

But that was also lifted on Thursday that barristers representing both the MoD and a group of media organisations reached a compromise that meant journalists could report the additional facts.

Defence Secretary John Healey told Parliament on Tuesday that the breach was a “serious departmental error” and acknowledged that it was “just one of many data losses” relating to the Afghan relocation schemes.

The shadow defence secretary, James Cartlidge, apologised on behalf of the former Conservative government, which was in power when the leak was discovered.

The MoD has refused to say how many people in Afghanistan may have been harmed as a result of the data breach. The Taliban government said on Thursday that it had not arrested or monitored Afghans affected by the leak.

But relatives of Afghans named in the leak told the BBC that they fear for their family still in the country, with one saying efforts by the Taliban to find their named relative intensified following the leak.

An MoD spokesperson said: “It’s longstanding policy of successive governments to not comment on special forces.

“We take the security of our personnel very seriously, particularly of those in sensitive positions, and always have appropriate measures in place to protect their security.” (BBC)

Tag: Afghanistan

More than 800 killed and 2,800 injured after earthquake hits Afghanistan

British spies and SAS named in Afghan data breach