The earthquake in Herat province of Afghanistan has claimed over 4,000 lives and has destroyed thousands of residential houses, Khaama Press reported, citing the Taliban ministry.
The Ministry of Disaster Management of Afghanistan announced on Saturday that 1,983 residential houses have also been destroyed in 20 villages in Herat.
In western Afghanistan’s Zinda Jan district, Saturday’s 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck without warning. Families were ripped apart, and entire villages pulverized in an earthquake that lasted only seconds.
The Taliban-run government estimates that thousands were killed, making it one of the worst natural disasters in Afghanistan in decades. Nobody expected it in this part of Afghanistan, which wasn’t considered particularly earthquake-prone, said an aid worker with CARE Afghanistan. “And nobody was prepared,” she said.
As authorities initially appeared paralyzed, villagers used their bare hands to remove bricks while aftershocks rattled the piles of collapsed houses. Survivors’ praying and wailing were drowned out when Afghan military helicopters arrived at the epicenter to take survivors and bodies to Herat’s regional hospital.
A spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Disaster Management. “I call on the international aid organizations to help those impacted by the earthquake. They have no shelter and no food,” he said in a news conference. The International Rescue Committee’s Afghanistan director said more than 29 million Afghans were already in need of humanitarian assistance before the earthquake.
“It’s becoming more and more difficult to address all that is happening,” she said, warning that a harsh winter could worsen the country’s humanitarian crisis.
Pray for the people in Afghanistan:
1 Timothy 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all people.
Philippians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
1 John 3:17 But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. With the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
Proverbs 14:31 He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor.
Proverbs 19:17 He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.
Proverbs 22:9 He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor.
Matthew 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Matthew 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
Matthew 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Matthew 22:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
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