Buried in rubble: on the Afghanistan earthquake 

Afghanistan reeled on Monday in the wake of a strong earthquake and multiple after-shocks, killing over 1,400 people, and injuring at least 3,100. According to the United States Geological Survey, the primary tremor was an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 and had struck near Jalalabad, Nangarhar province. After the first tremor, of magnitude 6.3, at a depth of eight kilometres, another earthquake, of magnitude 4.7, struck around 140 km from the epicentre of the initial tremor. The impact of the disaster is playing out in the Kunar and Nangarhar provinces where rescue efforts are on to find and extricate survivors and locate bodies that are buried under piles of rubble. What makes the salvage operations particularly challenging are the limited resources available to authorities given that the ruling Taliban regime faces multiple sanctions. This has been particularly stark following the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan in 2021. The United Nations and international humanitarian agencies have voiced their condolences and expressed support to aid the wounded and assist with relief operations.

Afghanistan, which abuts the Hindu Kush mountains, and is at the junction of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, lives under the constant threat of an earthquake. Since 1900, there have reportedly been 12 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 7 in north-east Afghanistan. In October 2023, the western Herat province was devastated by an earthquake of magnitude 6.3, and several aftershocks, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes. Given the vulnerability of the region, it also bears out that earthquakes of this magnitude and epicentre-depth cause much less damage to lives and property in several parts of the world. Delhi, in February 2025, reported a quake of magnitude 4, at a relatively shallow — and, therefore, potentially more devastating — depth of five kilometres below the surface. True, a quake of magnitude 6 is roughly 100 times more powerful than a one of magnitude 4 assuming similar depths of origin, but there was no physical damage at all reported anywhere in Delhi. At the other end, Chile is regularly besieged by quakes greater than a magnitude of 6, with all accounts suggesting minimal infrastructural damage and no attributable casualties. This is due to the country’s focused commitment to enforcing building codes. Earthquakes need not be a death sentence and Afghanistan must take decisive steps to strengthen its building codes and work to spread awareness on their enforcement.