UN Requests to Aid the Quake-Hit in Afghanistan

The United Nations announced on Tuesday that it had started an emergency appeal for $110 million to aid hundreds of thousands of people in parts of Afghanistan devastated by last week’s catastrophic earthquake.

Homes were destroyed and landslides were started when a high magnitude earthquake hit villages in the mountainous Paktika and Khost provinces on June 22. The earthquake caused at least 1,150 fatalities and hundreds of injuries. Over 10,000 homes were destroyed, leaving the people homeless. The UN agency for humanitarian affairs announced that UNOCHA and its partners have issued an appeal for $110 million to support 362,000 people urgently over the course of the following three months in the worst-affected regions of Paktika and Khost provinces. The Central Emergency Response Fund has released $10 million to support the earthquake response as of last Friday, or June 25th, according to Martin Griffiths, the Emergency Relief Coordinator. The UN statement notes that the earthquake not only resulted in fatalities and injuries, but it also devastated homes, hospitals, schools, and water networks, leaving thousands of people susceptible to additional suffering. The UN appeal for additional aid comes at a time when another aftershock, shook the earthquake-stricken, and impoverished villages of southeastern Khost and Paktika provinces.