The Washington Post, September 2025
More than 1,400 people have died from the 6.0-magnitude earthquake in eastern Afghanistan, a senior Afghan official said on Tuesday, as the Taliban appealed for international aid and aid groups warned that many people might still be trapped beneath the rubble. Over 3,000 people were injured in Sunday night’s quake, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, said in a post on X.
“I fear the death toll will rise,” Yousuf Hammad, a spokesman for the Taliban-run National Disaster Management Authority, told The Washington Post. Rescuers were struggling to access some of the impacted regions, after landslides triggered by the quake blocked many roads. Damage was most severe in Konar province, a remote and rural part of Afghanistan,where local officials said entire villages had been flattened. Afghan officials also reported casualties in the neighboring Nangahar province — where the earthquake’s epicenter is — and Laghman province.
“International organizations have played a key role during such disasters in the past,” said Hammad. “We definitely need international humanitarian aid.” Several neighboring countries, including Iran, Pakistan, and China, have offered their support to the Taliban government to help with disaster relief. But there were mounting concerns that recent Western aid cuts and reluctance to be seen as supportive of the Taliban-run regime might hamper the disaster response.
