The Taliban has it’s hand full….
Earthquake’s around the world seem to have increased …..
Especially in places that have weak structures and home construction….
One day after powerful earthquakes struck western Afghanistan, government officials estimated Sunday that more than 2,400 people were killed and thousands injured.
“Many are still trapped,” said Janan Saiq, a spokesman for the Taliban-run Ministry of Disaster Management who announced the toll. Several villages have “completely perished,” Saiq said, as the full extent of one of the deadliest natural disasters in Afghanistan in decades became increasingly clear.
Hundreds of people were hospitalized in and around the city of Herat, the provincial capital close to the epicenter, said health official Muhammad Talib Shahid, pushing medical resources there to the brink of collapse. There still appeared to be limited international assistance 24 hours after the quake. The United Nations and nongovernmental organizations said ambulances were on their way and that aid workers had begun to distribute emergency tents, clothes and medicine.
But Siddig Ibrahim, a senior UNICEF official in the region, warned that medicine and supplies in the region’s main hospital were “expected to be depleted soon.”
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs provided a lower number of confirmed fatalities than the death toll announced by the Taliban, saying Sunday night that 1,023 people were reported to have been killed and more than 500 were missing.
The initial 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit the surroundings of Herat on Saturday morning, severely damaging or destroying almost 2,000 homes, according to the government. Local officials later reported powerful aftershocks.
After initial assessments from local officials indicated limited damage Saturday, the death toll surged as rescue efforts continued overnight….