Earthquake
Southwest China quake leaves 30 dead, triggers landslides
At least 30 people were reported killed in a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that shook China’s southwestern province of Sichuan on Monday, triggering landslides and shaking buildings in the provincial capital of Chengdu, whose 21 million residents are already under a COVID-19 lockdown.
The quake struck a mountainous area in Luding county shortly after noon, the China Earthquake Networks Center said.
Sichuan, which sits on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau where tectonic plates meet, is regularly hit by earthquakes. Two quakes in June killed at least four people.
The death toll rose to 30 as the search for trapped people continued Monday night, state media said.
Earlier, authorities had reported 7 deaths in Luding county and 14 more in neighboring Shimian county to the south. Three of the dead were workers at the Hailuogou Scenic Area, a glacier and forest nature reserve.
Also read: Strong undersea quake causes panic in western Indonesia
Along with the deaths, authorities reported stones and soil falling from mountainsides, causing damage to homes and power interruptions, state broadcaster CCTV said. One landslide blocked a rural highway, leaving it strewn with rocks, the Ministry of Emergency Management said.
Buildings shook in Chengdu, 200 kilometers (125 miles) away from the epicenter. Resident Jiang Danli said she hid under a desk for five minutes in her 31st floor apartment. Many of her neighbors rushed downstairs, wary of aftershocks.
“There was a strong earthquake in June, but it wasn’t very scary. This time I was really scared, because I live on a high floor and the shaking made me dizzy,” she told The Associated Press.
The earthquake and lockdown follow a heat wave and drought that led to water shortages and power cuts due to Sichuan’s reliance on hydropower. That comes on top of the latest major lockdown under China’s strict “zero-COVID” policy.
The past two months in Chengdu “have been weird,” Jiang said.
Also read: 7.3 earthquake hits north Philippines, causes some damage
The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a magnitude of 6.6 for Monday’s quake at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). Preliminary measurements by different agencies often differ slightly.
China’s deadliest earthquake in recent years was a 7.9 magnitude quake in 2008 that killed nearly 90,000 people in Sichuan. The temblor devastated towns, schools and rural communities outside Chengdu, leading to a years-long effort to rebuild with more resistant materials.
7.3 earthquake hits north Philippines, causes some damage
A strong earthquake shook the northern Philippines on Wednesday, causing some damage and prompting people to flee buildings in the capital. Officials said no casualties were immediately reported.
The 7.3 magnitude quake was centered around Abra province in a mountainous area and several aftershocks have followed, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.
The quake was set off by movement in a local fault at a depth of 25 kilometers (15 miles), the institute said, adding it expected damage and more aftershocks.
Officials said the strong shaking caused cracks in buildings and houses.
Read: Japan minister says women ‘underestimated’
The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake’s strength at 7.0 and depth at 10 kilometers (6 miles). Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage.
The Philippines lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur. It is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
A magnitude 7.7 quake killed nearly 2,000 people in the northern Philippines in 1990.
Earthquake shakes Ecuador’s coast, teen killed by power line
An earthquake of preliminary magnitude 5.7 shook Ecuador’s coast Thursday, causing one death when a teenager was electrocuted by a fallen power line, authorities said.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at a depth of about 80 kilometers (49 miles) and was centered nearly 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of the port of Guayaquil.
Read: Earthquake jolts Dhaka, other areas
The Geophysical Institute of Ecuador said the tremor was felt over most of country, though “weakly” in the mountains.
Jorge Vera, mayor of the Simón Bolívar canton in the coastal Guayas province, said a 16-year-old was killed. He said a high voltage cable fell while the victim was engaged in “a sports activity,” but gave no further details.
Bangladesh sends help to quake-hit Afghanistan
Bangladesh has sent humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, where a strong earthquake claimed over 1,000 lives last month.
A C130-J aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force took off with emergency relief materials, including medicines, blankets, dry food and tents, on Tuesday and will hand them over to the Afghan government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a release.
Also read: Destruction everywhere, help scarce after Afghanistan quake
The powerful earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan on June 22, killing over a thousand people and injuring more than 2,000 others. The quake flattened hundreds of homes, triggering food, water, housing and medicine crisis.
Strong earthquake kills 5 in southern Iran
Five people were killed and 44 others injured in a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in southern Iran on Saturday, state television reported.
Rescue teams were deployed near the epicenter, Sayeh Khosh village, which is home to around 300 people in Hormozgan province, some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the capital, Tehran, the report said.
People went into the streets as aftershocks continued to jolt the area after the early morning quake, which also damaged buildings and infrastructure.
The earthquake was felt in many neighboring countries, the report said.
READ: India sends team to help with deadly Afghanistan earthquake
The area has seen several moderate earthquakes in recent weeks. In November, one man died following two magnitude 6.4 and 6.3 earthquakes.
Iran lies on major seismic faults and experiences one earthquake a day on average. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake flattened the historic city of Bam, killing 26,000 people. A magnitude 7 earthquake that struck western Iran in 2017 killed more than 600 people and injured more than 9,000.
Destruction everywhere, help scarce after Afghanistan quake
When the ground heaved from last week’s earthquake in Afghanistan, Nahim Gul’s stone-and-mud house collapsed on top of him.
He clawed through the rubble in the pre-dawn darkness, choking on dust as he searched for his father and two sisters. He doesn't know how many hours of digging passed before he caught a glimpse of their bodies under the ruins. They were dead.
Read: Deadly quake a new blow to Afghans reeling from poverty
Now, days after a 6 magnitude quake that devastated a remote region of southeast Afghanistan and killed at least 1,150 people and injured hundreds more, Gul sees destruction everywhere and help in short supply. His niece and nephew were also killed in the quake, crushed by the walls of their house.
“I don’t know what will happen to us or how we should restart our lives,” Gul told The Associated Press on Sunday, his hands bruised and his shoulder injured. “We don’t have any money to rebuild.”
It’s a fear shared among thousands in the impoverished villages where the fury of the quake has fallen most heavily — in Paktika and Khost provinces, along the jagged mountains that straddle the country’s border with Pakistan.
Those who were barely scraping by have lost everything. Many have yet to be visited by aid groups, which are struggling to reach the afflicted area on rutted roads — some made impassable by landslides and damage.
Aware of its constraints, the cash-strapped Taliban have called for foreign assistance. The United Nations and an array of international aid groups and countries have mobilized to send help.
China pledged Saturday to send nearly $7.5 million in emergency humanitarian aid, joining nations including Iran, Pakistan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in dispatching a planeload of tents, towels, beds and other badly needed supplies to the quake-hit area.
U.N. Deputy Special Representative Ramiz Alakbarov toured the affected Paktika province on Saturday to assess the damage and distribute food, medicine and tents. U.N. helicopters and trucks laden with bread, flour, rice and blankets have trickled into the stricken areas.
But the relief effort remains patchy due to funding and access constraints. The Taliban, which seized power last August from a government sustained for 20 years by a U.S.-led military coalition, appears overwhelmed by the logistical complexities of issues like debris removal in what is shaping up to be a major test of its capacity to govern.
Villagers have dug out their dead loved ones with their bare hands, buried them in mass graves and slept in the woods despite the rain. Nearly 800 families are living out in the open, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian coordination organization OCHA.
Read: Death toll from Afghanistan’s quake rises to 1,150 people
Gul received a tent and blankets from a local charity in the Gayan district, but he and his surviving relatives have had to fend for themselves. Terrified as the earth still rumbles from aftershocks like one on Friday that claimed five more lives, he said his children in Gayan refuse to go indoors.
The earthquake was the latest calamity to convulse Afghanistan, which has been reeling from a dire economic crisis since the Taliban took control of the country as the U.S. and its NATO allies were withdrawing their forces. Foreign aid — a mainstay of Afghanistan's economy for decades — stopped practically overnight.
World governments piled on sanctions, halted bank transfers and paralyzed trade, refusing to recognize the Taliban government and demanding they allow a more inclusive rule and respect human rights. The Biden administration cut off the Taliban's access to $7 billion in foreign currency reserves held in the United States.
The former insurgents have resisted the pressure, imposing restrictions on the freedoms of women and girls that recall their first time in power in the late 1990s.
Now, around half the country’s 39 million people are facing life-threatening levels of food insecurity because of poverty. Most civil servants, including doctors, nurses and teachers, have not been paid for months.
U.N. agencies and other remaining organizations have scrambled to keep Afghanistan from the brink of starvation with a humanitarian program that has fed millions and kept the medical system afloat. But with international donors lagging, U.N. agencies face a $3 billion funding shortfall this year.
Reeling from war and impoverished long before the Taliban takeover, the far-flung areas hit by last Wednesday’s earthquake are particularly ill-equipped to cope.
Some local businessmen have swung into action. The Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment said on Sunday it had raised over $1.5 million for Pakitka and Khost provinces.
Still, for those whose homes have been obliterated, the help may not be enough.
“We have nothing left,” Gul said.
Deadly quake a new blow to Afghans reeling from poverty
Afghanistan’s deadly earthquake this week struck one of the poorest corners of a country that has been hollowed out by increasing poverty. Even as more aid arrived Saturday, many residents have no idea how they will rebuild the thousands of homes destroyed in villages strung through the mountains.
The quake, which state media says killed at least 1,150 people, hit hardest in a region of high mountains where Paktika and Khost provinces meet by the Pakistani border. There is little fertile land, so residents eke out what they can while largely relying on money sent by relatives who have migrated to Pakistan, Iran or further abroad for jobs.
Every one of the nearly two dozen homes in one village, Miradin, were reduced to rubble by Wednesday’s quake. In the rainy nights since, its several hundred residents have been sleeping in nearby woods and had still not received the aid that was slowly making its way into quake-hit areas.
Miradin residents told the Associated Press they worried whether they’d be able to rebuild before the harsh winter hits, in only a few months. Summer is short in the mountains, nights are already chilly.
It’s a fear felt across the quake-hit region, where nearly 3,000 homes are believed to have been destroyed.
“We are facing many problems. We need all kind of support, and we request the international community and Afghans who can help to come forward and help us,” said Dawlat Khan, a resident of Paktika’s Gayan District. Five members of his family were injured when his house collapsed.
Among the dead from Wednesday’s magnitude 6 quake are 121 children and that figure is expected to climb, said the U.N. children’s agency representative in Afghanistan. He said close to 70 children were injured. An aftershock Friday took five more lives.
Read: Afghanistan earthquake kills at least 920 people: Official
The total toll of 1,150 dead and at least 1,600 injured was reported by the Afghan state news agency Bakhtar. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has put the death toll at 770 people. Either toll would make the quake Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades.
More aid was piling in on Saturday.
At Urgan, the main city in Paktika province, U.N. World Health Organization medical supplies were unloaded at the main hospital. In quake-hit villages, UNICEF delivered blankets, basic supplies and tarps for the homeless to use as tents.
In the district of Spera in Khost province on Saturday, UNICEF distributed water purification tablets along with soap and other hygiene materials. Aid groups said they feared cholera could break out after damage to water and hygiene systems.
New cargo flights of aid supplies arrived in Afghanistan from Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, officials said. Pakistan’s government and a Pakistani charity had already sent 13 trucks carrying food, tents, life-saving medicine and other essential items, and Pakistan has opened some border crossings for injured to be brought in for treatment.
Overstretched aid agencies said the disaster underscored the need for the international community to rethink its financial cut-off of Afghanistan since Taliban insurgents seized the country 10 months ago. That policy, halting billions in development aid and freezing vital reserves, has helped push the economy into collapse and plunge Afghanistan deeper into humanitarian crises and near famine.
The effort to help the victims has been slowed both by geography and by Afghanistan’s decimated condition.
Rutted roads through the mountains, already slow to drive on, were made worse by quake damage and rain. The International Red Cross has five health facilities in the region, but damage to the roads made it difficult for those in the worse-hit areas to reach them, said Lucien Christen, ICRC spokesman in Afghanistan.
Aid groups said that while they are rushing to help the quake victims, keeping Afghanistan just above catastrophe through humanitarian programs is not sustainable.
Read: Afghans bury dead, dig for survivors of devastating quake
“We are basically letting 25 million Afghan people to starve, to die, not to be able to earn their own living if we keep on with this financial blockade,” said Rossella Miccio, president of the aid organization Emergency that operates a network of healthcare facilities and surgical centers across Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s economy had been reliant on international donor support even before the Taliban takeover last August as the U.S. and its NATO allies were withdrawing their forces, ending a 20-year war.
World governments halted billions in development aid and froze billions more in Afghanistan’s currency reserves, refusing to recognize the Taliban government and demanding they allow a more inclusive rule and respect human rights. The former insurgents have resisted the pressure, imposing restrictions on the freedoms of women and girls that recall their first time in power in the late 1990s.
The cut-off yanked the props out from under the economy. Now nearly half the population of 38 million cannot meet their basic food needs because of poverty. Most civil servants, including doctors, nurses and teachers, have not been paid for months, and salaries remain sporadic.
U.N. agencies and other remaining organizations have kept Afghanistan away from the brink of starvation with a humanitarian program that has fed millions and kept the medical system alive.
But with international donors lagging, U.N. agencies face a $3 billion funding shortfall this year.
India sends team to help with deadly Afghanistan earthquake
India said it sent a technical team to Kabul to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance after a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan that state media reported killed 1,000 people.
India’s External Affairs Ministry said the team has been deployed to its embassy in the Afghan capital. The embassy has been vacant since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August.
A ministry statement on Thursday didn’t give details about the technical team or any relief material sent to Afghanistan. It said team was sent to “closely monitor and coordinate the efforts of various stakeholders for the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance” as part of a “continuation of our engagement with the Afghan people.”
Also Read: Afghans bury dead, dig for survivors of devastating quake
Residents in the hardest-hit district appeared to largely be on their own in trying to survive after the quake, with the Taliban-led government and the international aid community struggling to bring in help.
India was left with no diplomatic presence in Kabul after it evacuated its staff ahead of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. But it has sent 20,000 tons of wheat, 13 tons of medicines, 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines and winter clothing to Afghanistan to help with shortages there since then, according to the External Affairs Ministry.
Indian officials held talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan for the first time early this month to discuss the distribution of humanitarian assistance.
India’s envoys have met previously with Taliban representatives in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where they have an office.
India has said it will follow the lead of the United Nations in deciding whether to recognize the Taliban government.
Afghans bury dead, dig for survivors of devastating quake
Villagers rushed to bury the dead Thursday and dug by hand through the rubble of their homes in search of survivors of a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan that state media reported killed 1,000 people. Residents appeared to be largely on their own to deal with the aftermath as their new Taliban-led government and the international aid community struggled to bring in help.
Under a leaden sky in Paktika province, the epicenter of Wednesday’s earthquake where hundreds of homes have been destroyed, men dug several long trenches on a mountainside overlooking their village. They prayed over around 100 bodies wrapped in blankets and then buried them.
In villages across Gayan district, toured by Associated Press journalists for hours Thursday, families who had spent the previous rainy night out in the open lifted pieces of timber of collapsed roofs and pulled away stones by hand, looking for missing loved ones. Taliban fighters circulated in vehicles in the area, but only a few were seen helping dig through rubble.
There was little sign of heavy equipment — only one bulldozer was spotted being transported. Ambulances circulated, but little other help to the living was evident.
Many international aid agencies withdrew from Afghanistan when the Taliban seized power nearly 10 months ago. Those that remain are scrambling to get medical supplies, food and tents to the remote quake-struck area, using shoddy mountain roads made worse by damage and rains.
“We ask from the Islamic Emirate and the whole country to come forward and help us,” said a survivor who gave his name as Hakimullah. “We are with nothing and have nothing, not even a tent to live in.”
Read: Survivors dig by hand after Afghanistan quake killing 1,000
The scenes underscored how the magnitude 6 quake has struck a country that was already nearly on its knees from multiple humanitarian crises.
The quake took the lives of 1,000 people, according to the state-run Bakhtar News Agency, which also reported an estimated 1,500 more were injured. In the first independent count, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said around 770 people had been killed in Paktika and neighboring Khost province.
It’s not clear how the totals were arrived at, given the difficulties of accessing and communicating with the affected villages. Either grim toll would make the quake Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades, and officials continued to warn the number could still rise.
Since the Taliban took over in August amid the U.S and NATO withdrawal, the world pulled back financing and development aid that had been keeping the country afloat. The economy collapsed, leaving millions unable to afford food; many medical facilities shut down, making treatment harder to find. Nearly half the population of 38 million faces crisis levels of food insecurity.
Many aid and development agencies also left after the Taliban seizure of power. The U.N. and remaining agencies said they were moving blankets, food, tents, and medical teams to the area.
But they are over-stretched, and U.N. agencies are facing a $3 billion funding shortfall for Afghanistan this year. That means there will be difficult decisions about who gets aid, said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the United Nations’ refugee agency.
Local medical centers, already struggling to deal with malnutrition cases, were now overwhelmed with people injured by the quake, said Adnan Junaid, the International Rescue Committee vice president for Asia.
“The toll this disaster will have on the local communities ... is catastrophic, and the impact the earthquake will have on the already stretched humanitarian response in Afghanistan is a grave cause for concern,” Junaid said.
The Defense Ministry, which leads the Taliban emergency effort, said it sent 22 helicopter flights on Wednesday transporting wounded and taking supplies, along with several more Thursday.
Still, the Taliban’s resources have been gutted by the economic crisis. Made up of insurgents who fought for 20 years against the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban have also struggled to make the transition to governing.
Read: Afghan aid auditor accuses State, USAID of withholding info
On Wednesday, a U.N. official said the government had not requested that the world body mobilize international search-and-rescue teams or obtain equipment from neighboring countries, despite a rare plea from the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzadah, for help from the world.
Trucks of food and other necessities arrived from Pakistan, and planes full of humanitarian aid landed from Iran and Qatar, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter. India said it sent a technical team to its embassy in Kabul to coordinate the delivery of humanitarian assistance, but it didn't give details on the team or the relief material being sent.
Pakistan also opened several nearby border crossings to allow those affected by the disaster to cross, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sherif said in a call with the Taliban Prime Minister Mullah Hasan Akhund.
Obtaining more direct international help may be more difficult: Many countries, including the U.S., funnel humanitarian aid to Afghanistan through the U.N. and other organizations to avoid putting money in the Taliban’s hands, wary of dealing with the group, which has issued a flurry of repressive edicts curtailing the rights of women and girls and the press.
Germany, Norway and several other countries announced they were sending aid for the quake, but underscored that they would work only through U.N. agencies, not with the Taliban.
In a news bulletin Thursday, Afghanistan state television made a point to acknowledge that President Joe Biden of the United States — their one-time enemy — offered condolences over the earthquake and had promised aid. Biden on Wednesday ordered the U.S. international aid agency and its partners to “assess” options for helping the victims, a White House statement said.
U.N. deputy special representative for Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, told the U.N. Security Council in a video briefing he intends to visit quake-hit areas on Friday and “to meet with affected families, first-hand responders, including women’s civil society groups who are working to ensure that assistance reaches women and girls, and to support overall relief efforts.”
In Paktika province, the quake shook a region of deep poverty, where residents scrape out in a living in the few fertile areas among the rough mountains. Roads are so difficult that some villages in Gayan District took a full day to reach from Kabul, though it is only 175 kilometers (110 miles away.)
One 6-year-old boy in Gayan wept as he said his parents, two sisters and a brother were all dead. He had fled the ruins of his own home and took refuge with the neighbors.
While modern buildings withstand magnitude 6 earthquakes elsewhere, Afghanistan’s mud-brick homes and landslide-prone mountains make such quakes more dangerous.
One man, Rahim Jan, stood inside the few standing mud-brick walls of his home with the toppled roof timbers all around him.
“It is destroyed completely, all my belongings are gone,” he said. “I have lost 12 members of my family in this house.”
Survivors dig by hand after Afghanistan quake killing 1,000
Survivors dug by hand Thursday through villages in eastern Afghanistan reduced to rubble by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 1,000 people, as the Taliban and the international community that fled their takeover struggled to aid the disaster's victims.
In Paktika province's hard-hit Gayan district, villagers stood atop the mud bricks that once was a home there. Others carefully walked through dirt alleyways, gripping onto damaged walls with exposed timber beams to make their way.
The quake was Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades, and officials said the toll could rise. An estimated 1,500 others were reported injured, the state-run news agency said.
Read: Afghanistan quake kills 1,000 people, deadliest in decades
The disaster inflicted by the 6 magnitude quake heaps more misery on a country where millions face increasing hunger and poverty and the health system has been crumbling since the Taliban retook power nearly 10 months ago amid the U.S. and NATO withdrawal. The takeover led to a cutoff of vital international financing, and most of the world has shunned the Taliban government.
How — and whether the Taliban allow — the world to offer aid remains in question as rescuers without heavy equipment dug through rubble with their bare hands.
“We ask from the Islamic Emirate and the whole country to come forward and help us," said a survivor who gave his name as Hakimullah. "We are with nothing and have nothing, not even a tent to live in.”
The full extent of the destruction among the villages tucked in the mountains was slow in coming to light. The roads, which are rutted and difficult to travel in the best of circumstances, may have been badly damaged, and landslides from recent rains made access even more difficult.
While modern buildings withstand magnitude 6 earthquakes elsewhere, Afghanistan's mud-and-brick homes and landslide-prone mountains make such temblors even more dangerous.
Rescuers rushed in by helicopter, but the relief effort could be hindered by the exodus of many international aid agencies from Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover last August. Moreover, most governments are wary of dealing directly with the Taliban.
In a sign of the muddled workings between the Taliban and the rest of the world, the Taliban had not formally requested that the U.N. mobilize international search-and-rescue teams or obtain equipment from neighboring countries to supplement the few dozen ambulances and several helicopters sent in by Afghan authorities, said Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. deputy special representative to Afghanistan.
Still, officials from multiple U.N. agencies said the Taliban were giving them full access to the area.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter that eight trucks of food and other necessities from Pakistan arrived in Paktika. He also said Thursday that two planes of humanitarian aid from Iran and another from Qatar had arrived in the country.
Read: Afghan aid auditor accuses State, USAID of withholding info
Obtaining more direct international help may be more difficult: Many countries, including the U.S., funnel humanitarian aid to Afghanistan through the U.N. and other such organizations to avoid putting money in the Taliban’s hands.
The quake was centered in Paktika province, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the city of Khost, according to neighboring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department. Experts put its depth at just 10 kilometers (6 miles). Shallow earthquakes tend to cause more damage.
The death toll reported by the Bakhtar news agency was equal to that of a quake in 2002 in northern Afghanistan. Those are the deadliest since 1998, when an earthquake that was also 6.1 in magnitude and subsequent tremors in the remote northeast killed at least 4,500 people.
Wednesday’s quake took place in a region prone to landslides, with many older, weaker buildings.
In neighboring Khost province's Speray district, which also sustained serious damage, men stood atop what once was a mud home. The quake had ripped open its timber beams. People sat outside under a makeshift tent made of a blanket that blew in the breeze.
Survivors quickly prepared the district's dead, including children and an infant, for burial. Officials fear more dead will be found in the coming days.
“It is hard to gather all the exact information because it is mountainous area,” said Sultan Mahmood, Speray district's chief. "The information that we have is what we have gathered from the residents of these areas.”