Monday, 01 September 2025
Monday, 01 September 2025
India rushed aid to Kabul after a powerful earthquake killed over 800 people and injured 2,500 in Afghanistan, even as the tragedy renewed focus on the country’s history of deadly seismic events along the Indian-Eurasian fault line.
“Deeply saddened by the loss of lives due to the earthquake in Afghanistan.India stands ready to provide all possible humanitarian aid and relief to those affected,” PM Narendra Modi wrote on X.
External affairs minister of India, S Jaishankar spoke with Afghan foreign minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi and conveyed that India has delivered 1000 family tents today in Kabul.
15 tonnes of food material is also being moved by the Indian Mission from Kabul to Kunar.
India will send further relief material from Tuesday.
“India stands by Afghanistan at this difficult time,” Jaishankar wrote on X.
Iran has also extended support.
“In these difficult moments and great tragedy, while expressing sincere condolences and solidarity with the great people of Afghanistan and the bereaved families, the Islamic Republic of Iran announces its full readiness to send relief, medical and humanitarian aid, ” Tasnim news agency quoted foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote that he stands in “full solidarity with the people of Afghanistan after the devastating earthquake that hit the country earlier today.”
The UN office in Afghanistan confirmed that its teams are already on the ground and emergency assistance is being delivered to affected communities.
A resident in Nurgal district, one of the worst-affected areas in Kunar province, told Al Jazeera that his entire village has been flattened.
“Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble,” said the villager.
The devastation has once again highlighted how Afghanistan has been shaken by earthquakes in recent years.
In 2025, multiple quakes rattled Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush and Pakistan. In August, a 5.6 magnitude quake hit the Hindu Kush region on the 27th, less than two weeks after a 5.2 tremor struck the same zone at a depth of 186 kilometers.
The pattern was similar in 2024. In January, Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush region saw a 6.3 magnitude quake, while the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border was hit by a 5.0 tremor.
The previous year brought equally grim reminders. Northern Afghanistan was struck by a 6.5 magnitude quake in late March 2023 that killed at least 13 people. Later that October, a series of tremors left many more dead.
Strong quakes were also felt on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border and across the Hindu Kush, measuring between 5.1 and 5.8 on the Richter scale.
In 2022, Afghanistan suffered one of its deadliest disasters in decades when a 6.0 magnitude earthquake in June killed over 1,000 people. That year also saw repeated quakes in Afghanistan’s west and southeast.
