Mass funeral held for Afghan quake victims, families still missing

A mass funeral ceremony for around 300 earthquake victims was held on Monday in rural western Afghanistan, as families remained trapped in the rubble of their ruined homes two days after high-magnitude tremors killed more than 2,000 people.

In Siah Ab village, near the epicentre of Saturday's magnitude 6.3 quake followed by eight aftershocks, white-shrouded bodies were unloaded from a fleet of ambulances and laid in ranks as crowds solemnly crossed their arms in Islamic prayer.

The UN says "100 per cent" of homes were destroyed in 11 villages of rural Zenda Jan district, around 30 kilometres northwest of Herat city, capital of the same-named province.

Aid trickled in Monday on trucks packed with food and blankets, and blue tents began to pop up amidst the jumble of brown mud bricks where family homes once stood.

But disaster management ministry spokesman Mullah Janan Sayeq said that still "people are trying to search and get their family out of debris".

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Reports from the field described "a very bad situation" he told a news conference in the capital.

Local and national officials gave conflicting counts of the number of dead and injured, but the disaster ministry said on Sunday that 2,053 people had died.

"We can't give exact numbers for dead and wounded as it is in flux," Sayeq said Monday.

The World Health Organisation estimated more than 11,000 people had been affected from 1,655 families.

As winter draws in, providing shelter for residents will be a major challenge for Afghanistan's Taliban government, which seized power in August 2021 and has fractious relations with international aid organisations.

Taliban authorities have banned women from working for UN and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the country, making it difficult to assess family needs in deeply conservative parts of the country.

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Amnesty International said the Taliban government should "ensure that rescue and relief efforts are carried out without discrimination" and "guarantee safe and unrestricted access to the affected regions for humanitarian agencies".

"It is critical that all assistance meets the needs of the most at-risk groups who often face compounded challenges in crisis situations, including women, children, older persons, and people with disabilities," said South Asia regional researcher Zaman Sultani.

In Sarboland village, an AFP reporter saw gutted homes, with personal belongings flapping in the wind as women and children camped out in the open.

Most rural homes in Afghanistan are made of mud, built around wooden support poles, with little in the way of modern steel reinforcement.

Multi-generational extended families generally live under the same roof, meaning disasters such as Saturday's quake can devastate local communities.

Afghanistan is already suffering a dire humanitarian crisis, with the widespread withdrawal of foreign aid following the Taliban's return to power.

Herat province -- home to around 1.9 million people on the border with Iran — has also been hit by a years-long drought that has crippled many hardscrabble farm communities.

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

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