M 6.0 Earthquake - 27 km ENE of Jalālābād, Afghanistan

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Source:https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cy8kkxxxj3xt

Summary

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan late on Sunday at a relatively shallow depth of 8km (6 miles)

Officials have told the BBC that at least 20 people have been killed while more than 100 others are being treated at hospitals for injuries

Modelling from the United States Geological Survey suggests the estimated number of deaths could reach the hundreds

The quake shook buildings from Kabul to Pakistan's capital Islamabad - which is more than 300km (186miles) away...

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UN GENEVA PRESS BRIEFING

12 September 2025 UN Geneva Press Briefing
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Urgent Support Needed for Afghanistan Earthquake Response

Tajudeen Oyewale, Afghanistan Country Representative, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said he was at the earthquake zone in Afghanistan earlier this week, where he saw the devastation on the ground. It was important that the international community responded with urgency and commitment to the crisis.

Children were bearing the heaviest burden after the earthquake struck. At least 1,172 children had died, making up half of the overall death toll. In addition, 45 children had been separated from their families, and 271 were newly orphaned.

Mr. Oyewale said that what he had seen was extreme devastation. The crisis had claimed more than 2,000 lives, with more than 3,000 people injured and at least 6,700 homes either destroyed or badly damaged. Behind these numbers were children left standing alone in the rubble and families torn apart in the blink of an eye.

More than half a million people had been impacted by the earthquake - among them, 263,000 were children who now faced heightened risks. For children, this disaster came on top of multiple conflicts and recurrent emergencies that had already robbed them of their childhood.

In a heavily destroyed village called Machkandol in Nangahar Province, Mr. Oyewale said he had met, amid rubble, stones and broken straws, three girls and one boy. The boy had broken his fingers in the rescue and the girls were completely disorientated and unaware of what had happened. The children had lost their families, their homes and their livestock. It was truly heartbreaking.

In Khas Kunar in Kunar Province, he met a five-year-old girl carrying her two-year-old sister, who had stitches all over her head. Both were praying that their hospitalised mother with severe fractures would survive.

Across the hardest-hit areas in Kunar and Nangarhar, children were in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Many are now without shelter, grieving loved ones, and struggling to cope with trauma. The affected districts were extremely difficult to access, with steep terrain, limited road access, and fragile infrastructure. It took UNICEF more than 3.5 hours to reach Machkandol.

UNICEF was going the extra mile to ensure that it reached affected children and families. It was mindful of the social norms on the ground and was deploying female frontline workers to ensure that women and girls could access support safely and equitably.

Girls in particular faced unique risks. When homes were destroyed, girls were often the first to drop out of school, in a country where their right to education faced enormous barriers. When families lost livelihoods, girls were at greater risk of child marriage.

Mr. Oyewale commended the efforts of humanitarian workers on the ground. Even in the most remote villages, UNICEF and partners were providing emergency healthcare through mobile health and nutrition teams delivering trauma care. It was also offering maternal and newborn services and essential medicines and screening children for malnutrition, as the impacted areas also had high rates of malnutrition.

UNICEF was also working to rehabilitate sustainable water systems, establish emergency water points and construct toilets to protect the communities from outbreaks and infection. Mental health support was critical for those affected, and counselling support was being provided in health facilities and internal displacement camps. Cash assistance was also being provided to support displaced families.

To meet the needs, UNICEF had launched a 22 million United States dollar (USD) appeal to reach 400,000 people—including more than 212,000 children—over the next six months. With sufficient support, and through close coordination with national and local partners, it could save lives, protect children, and help families begin to recover with dignity.

UNICEF urged donors and the international community to stand with Afghanistan’s children at this critical moment. They must not face this crisis alone.

Read the full press release here.

Arafat Jamal, Representative to Afghanistan, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said that in spring, Mr. Jamal had reported on movements of people out of Pakistan; and in summer, on movement out of Iran and deportations from Tajikistan to Afghanistan. There was now another large number of people leaving Pakistan and returning to Afghanistan under adverse circumstances, returning to a country that was poorly equipped to receive them.

Afghanistan was suffering from crisis upon crisis, with 70 per cent of the population suffering from poverty, and the State impacted by drought, human rights abuses and now yet another earthquake.

Since the start of this year, some 2.6 million Afghans, equivalent to six per cent of the population, had returned to the country. Some had never set foot in Afghanistan, while others had not been there for decades.

As Pakistan resumed implementation of its “Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan,” more than 554,000 Afghans had returned since April – including 143,000 in August alone. In recent weeks, the pace had surged further: in the first week of September alone, nearly 100,000 people crossed back from Pakistan, stretching capacities to the limit.

Together with partners, UNHCR was providing returnees with immediate assistance – cash support, protection and other essential services – both at border points and in their areas of return, to help families begin rebuilding their lives. The earthquake had seriously complicated matters because it struck in an area of high return.

Families had been devastated in the worst way possible by the earthquake. Some had shared stories of having just rebuilt and resettled, only to find their homes destroyed, and tragically, often several members of their families killed. Not surprisingly, some of these people said they never wanted to go back to Kunar again.

The United Nations was suffering from the reinforcement of the ban of females working in Afghanistan. UNHCR was currently considering its response and had taken various systematic measures.

However, at UNHCR cash distribution centres at the border and in the main cities, biometric registration of recipients was impossible without female Afghan workers. Without female workers, UNHCR would need to force female Afghans to have their biometrics taken by male Afghans. For this reason, the agency decided on 9 September to close its cash and support centres. This decision would have consequences for many returnees. UNHCR was negotiating with authorities on this issue. This was an operational decision that was not intended to punish people or make a statement, but it demonstrated that the agency could not work without female workers in certain circumstances.

UNHCR urged Pakistan and other neighbouring countries to uphold their long-standing humanitarian approaches to Afghan refugees and extend legal aid to those in need of international protection, such as groups who faced heightened risks on return.

UNHCR stood ready to support governments in the region in developing practical mechanisms to identify individuals with ongoing protection needs, and to expand regulated migration pathways for Afghans. It also urged countries across the region to ensure returns were voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable – and that no one in need of protection was forced back to a place where their rights and freedoms were at risk, or to a country already stretched to the limit in absorbing new arrivals.

UNHCR remained grateful to governments, companies and individuals who had already stepped up to support UNHCR’s work in Afghanistan and across the region, but its resources were running out quickly. Without additional funding, it would not be able to sustain life-saving assistance for Afghan families facing these overlapping crises. It had updated its regional appeal for returns in light of recent events and was calling for 258.6 million USD.

Read the full press release here.

In response to questions, Mr. Jamal said a joint statement had been issued yesterday that called for the lifting of restrictions on female staff accessing United Nations premises. The reasons for the current reinforcement of the ban on female workers were unclear, but the ban had been implemented in a dramatic fashion, with military observers placed outside all United Nations compounds, to prevent female staff from working.

The United Nations had taken some measures in response to the ban on female workers and was considering additional steps. UNHCR’s decision to close its cash grant centres was a drastic one and was causing a huge amount of suffering for the people. The agency was in a constant dialogue with the de facto authorities and hoped for a resolution to the issue. If one could not be reached, UNHCR would consider an alternative solution.

Mr. Oyewale, in response to questions, said UNICEF was in a grey zone in terms of its ability to deploy female frontline workers on the ground. Where it had the ability to deploy these workers, it was doing so. UNICEF was working at both national and local levels.
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https://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/press-briefing/2025/09/un-geneva-press-briefing-2