London Afghan community devastated over earthquake in western Afghanistan
Many of the over 2,000 people killed in earthquake were women, children
Members of London's Afghan community say Saturday's 6.3-magnitude earthquake that destroyed six villages in western Afghanistan and killed over 2,000 people is "devastating," as the death toll continues to climb.
Thousands more are without shelter.
"The district has been completely destroyed," said Londoner Abdul Katawazy. "There are a lot of people still under the rubble in the mud."
The World Health Organization in Afghanistan says many of the dead were women and children, who were killed in collapsed buildings. Another earthquake shook the region Wednesday morning, injuring another 80 people and blocking a major highway.
The Afghan community in London is tight-knit and communicates over social media, and many are newcomers who are trying to help, Katawazy said.
"Most of them are here just after the 2021 change of government in Afghanistan and they're struggling settling in the community themselves. They can only offer very little support from what they're earning and they all want to help," he said.
Londoner Hikmatullah Noori has a cousin who lives in the Herat region, where the earthquake happened, who is working with non-profit United Hands Relief in the destroyed villages.
So far he has not seen anyone in the London Afghan community share if they have lost family, but the community is hurting from the devastation back home, Noori said.
"Those people living in the area, some of them they lost eight, nine, 10, 12 members of the family," he said.
WHO Afghanistan says at least 12,110 people from 1,703 families have been affected by the quake.
Afghanistan may struggle with aid resources, says resident
Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, Katawazy said.
"Afghanistan being a mountainous region and they're very close to the Hindu Kush [mountain range] and they have always been affected by earthquakes," he said.
More than 1,000 people were killed in an earthquake in June 2022, which was called the deadliest earthquake in two decades at the time. A 6.5-magnitude earthquake in Pakistan and Afghanistan in March injured 80 people.
Homes in the region are mostly constructed from mud bricks and when an earthquake happens, "nothing remains intact," Katawazy said.
"The impact is very huge and the government is not very well equipped. People are using bare hands as shovels to extract the dead bodies," Katawazy said.
The Afghan community in London is doing what it can to offer support from Canada, Noori added.
"They are praying for them and they are trying to collect donations for them if they can, as much as they can, to send it over there to support them," he said.
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With files from The Associated Press, Reuters and The Canadian Press