A senior official said on Friday that Afghanistan does not have enough medical supplies to treat the injured from an earthquake that killed 1,000 people, as authorities called off the search for survivors in the remote southeastern mountains.
According to Mohammad Nassim Haqqani, a spokesperson for the disaster ministry, the early Wednesday earthquake injured about 2,000 people and destroyed 10,000 houses.
‘The health ministry does not have enough drugs; we require medical aid and other necessities because this is a major disaster,’ he explained.
The 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck about 160 kilometres (100 miles) southeast of Kabul, near the Pakistani border, in an arid mountain region dotted with small settlements that has been frequently contested during Afghanistan’s decades of war.
Poor communications and a lack of proper roads have hampered relief efforts in a country grappling with a humanitarian crisis that worsened dramatically after the Taliban took control last August as US-led international forces withdrew.
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