A powerful magnitude 6 earthquake has claimed the lives of over 600 people in eastern Afghanistan, with more than 1,500 injured. Authorities are conducting a massive rescue operation in remote, devastated villages, as the death toll is feared to rise further.
September 1, 2025: Authorities confirmed Monday that a strong magnitude 6 earthquake in eastern Afghanistan has killed at least 622 people and hurt more than 1,500. A huge rescue mission is already underway in distant, devastated areas. The shallow quake, which hit at a depth of 10 km (6 miles), has caused a lot of damage in a country that was already weak.
State-run station Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) stated that 500 people had died at first, but that number has now risen as rescue crews reach more areas that were damaged. A spokesman for the Taliban-run Afghan interior ministry confirmed the higher number, but local officials and health authorities have warned that the ultimate count could yet go up.
Three villages in Kunar province have been completely destroyed, while many more have been badly damaged. Najibullah Hanif, the chairman of Kunar’s provincial information office, said that at least 250 people have died and 500 have been hurt in that province alone.
Rescuers, such as military and medics, are having a very hard time in the mountains. Helicopters are taking the injured to safety, while people in the area near Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, where homes made of mud and stone were destroyed, are searching through the rubble to discover survivors.
Afghanistan is already dealing with a major humanitarian crisis, and the disaster makes things even worse. A representative for the foreign office said at first that no foreign countries had offered help, but the United Nations has now confirmed that its relief teams had arrived in the affected districts with critical supplies and life-saving support.
Afghanistan is very likely to have devastating earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain area where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. Last year, a series of earthquakes in the west of the country killed more than 1,000 people. This shows how vulnerable the people are to natural calamities.