Closing summary
The death toll from the earthquake that has risen to over 800, the Taliban government spokesperson has said, with the majority of deaths occurring in the remote Kunar province. About 800 people died and 2,500 others were injured in Kunar, spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told a press conference in Kabul, adding that the toll of 12 dead and 255 injured in the Nangarhar province had not changed.
Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said the earthquake intensified existing humanitarian challenges in Afghanistan and urged international donors to support relief efforts. “This adds death and destruction to other challenges including drought and the forced return of millions of Afghans from neighbouring countries,” Grandi wrote on the social media platform X.
Rescuers are operating across Afghanistan’s east, with helicopters helping bring the injured to safety, while rubble is combed through in the hunt for survivors. The Taliban interior ministry has said in a statement that the vast majority of deaths occurred in the Kunar region (610), with a further 12 deaths in Nangarhar.
An unnamed but high-ranking Taliban official in the Kunar province has told BBC News that the rescue mission is now focused on finding survivors, not the dead. He said that rescue teams have been struggling to reach wounded people because significant numbers are waiting to be airlifted by helicopters as landslides have closed most of roads.
More than 1.2 million people likely felt strong or very strong shaking after Sunday’s earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), which recorded at least five aftershocks throughout the night. As a reminder, the magnitude 6 earthquake hit four provinces in eastern Afghanistan around midnight on Sunday, with the rugged, mountainous region of Kunar the worst affected, triggering landslides and flooding.
The Afghan Red Crescent said its officials and medical teams have “rushed to the affected areas” of the earthquake and are “providing emergency assistance to impacted families”.
Humanitarian agencies say they are fighting a forgotten crisis in Afghanistan, where the United Nations estimates more than half the population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid. “So far, no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work,” a spokesperson of Afghanistan’s foreign office said on Monday.
Rescuers have been battling to reach remote mountainous areas cut off from mobile networks along the Pakistani border, where mudbrick homes dotting the slopes collapsed in the quake. “The area of the earthquake was affected by heavy rain in the last 24-48 hours as well, so the risk of landslides and rock slides is also quite significant - that is why many of the roads are impassable,” Kate Carey, an officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Unocha), told Reuters.
One resident in Afghanistan’s Nurgal district, one of the worst-affected areas in Kunar, said almost the entire village had collapsed under the force of the earthquake. “Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble,” the villager, who did not give his name, told the Associated Press.
Muhammad Aziz, a labourer from Kunar’s Nur Gul district, said 10 of his relatives, including his five children, had been killed in the earthquake and many people from his village remained trapped under the rubble. “The poor people in this area have lost everything,” he said. “There is death in every home, and beneath the rubble of each roof, there are dead bodies.”
One survivor described seeing homes collapse before his eyes and people screaming for help.
Sadiqullah, who lives in the Maza Dara area of Nurgal, said he was woken by a deep boom that sounded like a storm approaching. Like many Afghans, he uses only one name.
He ran to where his children were sleeping and rescued three of them. He was about to return to grab the rest of his family when the room fell on top of him.
“I was half-buried and unable to get out,” he told the Associated Press by phone from Nangarhar Hospital.
“My wife and two sons are dead, and my father is injured and in hospital with me. We were trapped for three to four hours until people from other areas arrived and pulled me out.”
It felt like the whole mountain was shaking, he said.
Some more images depicting the devastation amid the rescue mission in Kunar province, Afghanistan:
Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said the earthquake intensified existing humanitarian challenges in Afghanistan and urged international donors to support relief efforts.
“This adds death and destruction to other challenges including drought and the forced return of millions of Afghans from neighbouring countries,” Grandi wrote on the social media platform X.
“Hopefully the donor community will not hesitate to support relief efforts.”
Updated
It was almost midnight when Hameed Jan was jolted awake in his bed by a deep rumble. Powerful tremors were shaking his small house in Piran village in Afghanistan’s Kunar region and he could see the walls beginning to crack.
“I jumped out of bed and rushed to where my children and parents were sleeping,” said Jan. “I managed to rescue two of my children and brought them outside to safety. I went back inside to save my younger siblings, but as I did, the roof and walls collapsed around me.”
As the magnitude-6 earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan late on Sunday night, Jan found himself buried in the rubble of his own house. As much as he tried to claw at the debris, he struggled to push his head through the wreckage. It took local villagers five hours to finally free him. But when he finally broke through, he was greeted with scenes of tragedy and devastation.
His wife, two sons and two brothers were among those killed when the powerful earthquake struck, razing entire villages across the region to the ground. In the poverty-stricken, mountainous terrain of Kunar, most homes in the affected villages had been made only of mud, giving people little defence from the debris and floods caused by the earthquake when it struck as they slept. Most homes lay in a pile of rubble or washed away entirely.
“It felt as if the entire mountain was collapsing on us,” said Jan. “Our village has been completely devastated and residential areas wiped out.”
An unnamed but high-ranking Taliban official in the Kunar province has told BBC News that the rescue mission is now focused on finding survivors, not the dead.
He said that rescue teams have been struggling to reach wounded people because significant numbers are waiting to be airlifted by helicopters as landslides have closed most of roads.
He told the BBC Afghan Service:
The scale of devastation is unimaginable, entire villages are flattened, roads to deep mountainous areas are still closed.
So now, for us, the priority is not finding dead under the rubble, but rather reaching out to those injured.
The official added:
Most of the dead bodies are under rubble.
We are doing everything, but it doesn’t seem possible soon.
Ziaul Haq Mohammadi, a student at Al-Falah University in the eastern city of Jalalabad, was studying in his room at home when the quake struck.
He said he tried to stand up but was knocked over by the power of the tremor.
“We spent the whole night in fear and anxiety because at any moment another earthquake could happen,” Mohammadi told Reuters.
Humanitarian agencies say they are fighting a forgotten crisis in Afghanistan, where the United Nations estimates more than half the population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
“So far, no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work,” a spokesperson of Afghanistan’s foreign office said on Monday.
Later, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said it was ready to provide disaster relief assistance “according to Afghanistan’s needs and within its capacity”.
Meanwhile, foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar of India said it had delivered 1,000 family tents to Kabul and was moving 15 tonnes of food material to Kunar, with more relief material to be sent from India starting Tuesday.
Rescuers have been battling to reach remote mountainous areas cut off from mobile networks along the Pakistani border, where mudbrick homes dotting the slopes collapsed in the quake.
“The area of the earthquake was affected by heavy rain in the last 24-48 hours as well, so the risk of landslides and rock slides is also quite significant - that is why many of the roads are impassable,” Kate Carey, an officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Unocha), told Reuters.
Rescue teams and authorities are trying to dispose of animal carcasses quickly so as to minimise the risk of contamination to water resources, Carey said.
Casualties could rise as rescue teams access more isolated locations, authorities said.
Here are some of the latest photos from Afghanistan, that have been sent to us via the newswires:
'There is death in every home', Kunar resident says after his five children killed by earthquake
Muhammad Aziz, a labourer from Kunar’s Nur Gul district, said 10 of his relatives, including his five children, had been killed in the earthquake and many people from his village remained trapped under the rubble.
“The poor people in this area have lost everything,” he said. “There is death in every home, and beneath the rubble of each roof, there are dead bodies. The mud houses have been wiped away, and destruction is everywhere. People are desperately seeking help.”
More than 1.2 million people likely felt strong or very strong shaking after Sunday’s earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), which recorded at least five aftershocks throughout the night.
As a reminder, the magnitude 6 earthquake hit four provinces in eastern Afghanistan around midnight on Sunday, with the rugged, mountainous region of Kunar the worst affected, triggering landslides and flooding.
The earthquake’s epicentre was about 27km (17miles) away from the bustling trade city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan’s fifth-largest city, and around 140km (87 miles) from the capital Kabul.
As my colleagues Haroon Janjua and Hannah Ellis-Petersen report in this story, the earthquake was shallow, taking place close to the Earth’s surface, which is known to cause greater destruction.
Updated
Since the return of the Taliban in 2021, foreign aid to Afghanistan has been slashed, undermining the already impoverished countries’ ability to respond to disasters such as this one.
About 85% of the Afghan population lives on less than one dollar a day, according to the UN development programme.
Updated
Rescue efforts after Afghanistan earthquake kills more than 800 people – video
Here is a video of the aftermath of the earthquake, which triggered landslides and flooding after hitting Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province overnight:
The number of Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan surged after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021.
Since returning to power, the militant Islamists have banned women from paid work and girls from secondary education, as well as issuing a series of edicts that ban women from many areas of public life, including walking in parks and even speaking in public.
Many people have fled to neighbouring countries to escape the oppressive regime, often without proper documentation.
Pakistan has taken in Afghans through decades of war, but officials say the country’s public services can’t cope with the influx and have, along with Afghanistan, stepped up deportations in recent months.
At least 1.2 million Afghans have been forced to return to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan so far this year, according to a June report by UNHCR.
Afghans living in Iran have been leaving in large numbers since October 2023, when authorities announced a crackdown on foreigners who it said were in the country illegally. Israel’s war with Iran over the summer forced many to flee as Israeli airstrikes targeted the country.
Updated
Afghanistan already suffering from 'multiple crises' on top of earthquake, UN official says
Afghanistan is already suffering a “multiplicity of crises” under the Taliban-run government, the UN’s high commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has told Sky News in an interview.
Grandi said the unfolding situation in the country was “very tragic” as Afghanistan is already suffering from a “big drought” while Iran has “sent back almost 2 million people” and Pakistan “threatens to do the same”.
“We have very little information as of yet, but already, reports of hundreds of people killed and many more made homeless,” he said.
“It’s extremely difficult to mobilise resources because of the Taliban. So it’s a perfect storm,” Grandi added.
Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires from Afghanistan:
UN secretary general António Guterres has expressed his condolences to those affected by the earthquake in Afghanistan.
“I stand in full solidarity with the people of Afghanistan after the devastating earthquake that hit the country earlier today,” he said.
The UN said earlier on social media that its teams in Afghanistan are “delivering emergency assistance and life-saving support”.
But many of the badly affected areas are remote and have limited telecoms networks, complicating rescue efforts.
Updated
More than 800 people killed by earthquake, Afghan government says
The death toll from the earthquake that has risen to over 800, the Taliban government spokesperson has said in an update, with the majority of deaths occurring in the remote Kunar province.
About 800 people died and 2,500 others were injured in Kunar, spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told a press conference in Kabul, adding that the toll of 12 dead and 255 injured in the Nangarhar province had not changed.
One resident in Afghanistan’s Nurgal district, one of the worst-affected areas in Kunar, said almost the entire village had collapsed under the force of the earthquake.
“Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble,” the villager, who did not give his name, told the Associated Press.
“We need help here,” he pleaded. “We need people to come here and join us. Let us pull out the people who are buried. There is no one who can come and remove dead bodies from under the rubble.”
Updated
As we mentioned in the summary post (see 07.28), Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.
Afghanistan has a number of fault lines and frequent movement among three nearby tectonic plates.
A series of earthquakes in its west killed more than 1,000 people last year, underscoring the vulnerability of one of the world’s poorest countries to natural disasters.
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Afghanistan on 7 October 2023, followed by strong aftershocks. The Taliban government estimated that at least 4,000 people died.
The UN gave a far lower death toll of about 1,500. It was the deadliest natural disaster to strike Afghanistan in recent memory.
Updated
Vast majority of deaths are in Kunar region, Taliban interior ministry says
Rescuers are operating across Afghanistan’s east, with helicopters helping bring the injured to safety, while rubble is combed through in the hunt for survivors.
The Taliban interior ministry has said in a statement that the vast majority of deaths occurred in the Kunar region (610), with a further 12 deaths in Nangarhar.
The disaster will further stretch the resources of the south Asian nation already grappling with humanitarian crises and a sharp drop in aid.
In a post on X, the UN Afghanistan account wrote:
The UN in Afghanistan is deeply saddened by the devastating earthquake that struck the eastern region & claimed hundreds of lives, injuring many more.
Our teams are on the ground, delivering emergency assistance & lifesaving support. Our thoughts are with the affected communities.
Updated
The Afghan Red Crescent said its officials and medical teams have “rushed to the affected areas” of the earthquake and are “providing emergency assistance to impacted families”.
#Kunar:
— Afghan Red Crescent | افغاني سره میاشت (@ARCSAfghanistan) September 1, 2025
A powerful #earthquake struck late last night in various areas of Nurgal district, Kunar province, causing both human casualties and significant financial losses to local communities.
In the immediate aftermath, officials from the #ARCS, along with medical teams, rushed… pic.twitter.com/dolNY2N6dp
What we know so far...
Here is a summary from Afghanistan, where hundreds of people have been killed after an earthquake struck the country’s mountainous eastern region late last night. This is what we know so far:
At least 622 people have been killed and more than 1,500 others injured in the earthquake, Afghanistan’s Taliban-run interior ministry said on Monday morning.
The earthquake struck the rugged province of Kunar at 11.47pm on Sunday and was centred 27km north-east of the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, the US Geological Survey said.
Jalalabad is about 119km (74 miles) away from the capital city, Kabul. A 4.5 magnitude quake occurred 20 minutes later in the same province.
The Kunar Disaster Management Authority said deaths and injuries had been reported in the districts of Nur Gul, Soki, Watpur, Manogi and Chapadare.
The earthquake reportedly shook buildings from Kabul to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.
Rescuers rushed to reach remote areas in the country’s eastern provinces in the aftermath of the earthquake but limited communications and the region’s narrow mountain roads have complicated rescue efforts.
Officials from the Taliban-run government have asked for aid from international organisations.
Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.
More than 600 killed in Afghanistan earthquake, Taliban interior ministry says
The death toll from the earthquake in Afghanistan has now risen to 622, Reuters has cited an Afghan interior ministry spokesperson as having said.
Authorities said that more than 1,500 people were injured by the 6.0-magnitude earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan just before midnight local time on Sunday.
Updated
Sharafat Zaman, a spokesperson for Afghanistan’s ministry of public health has said several villages in Kunar province have been “completely destroyed”, adding that rescue operations are underway there.
The figures for martyrs and injured are changing. Medical teams from Kunar, Nangarhar and the capital Kabul have arrived in the area.”
He said many areas had not been able to report casualties figures and that “the numbers were expected to change” as death and injuries are reported.
The quake struck the province of Kunar at 11.47pm on Sunday and was centred 27km north-east of the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, the US Geological Survey said.
A 4.5 magnitude quake occurred 20 minutes later in the same province.
Jalalabad is a bustling trade city due to its proximity with neighboring Pakistan and a key border crossing between the countries. Although it has a population of about 300,000 according to the municipality, its metropolitan area is thought to be far larger. Most of its buildings are low-rise constructions, mostly of concrete and brick, and its outlying areas include homes built of mud bricks and wood. Many are of poor construction.
Jalalabad also has considerable agriculture and farming, including citrus fruit and rice, with the Kabul River flowing through the city.
Rescuers were working in several districts of the mountainous province where the quake hit, levelling homes of mud and stone on the border with Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, officials said.
Updated
6.0 magnitude earthquake leaves hundreds dead, state media reports
An earthquake in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border has killed hundreds and left more than a thousand injured, the country’s state-run broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) reported, with fears that many more could be among the dead.
The quake late Sunday hit a series of towns in the province of Kunar, near the city of Jalalabad in neighbouring Nangahar province. The 6.0 magnitude was just 8km deep. Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage.
The Kunar Disaster Management Authority said in a statement that at least 250 people were killed and 500 others injured in the districts of Nur Gul, Soki, Watpur, Manogi and Chapadare.
Taliban-led health authorities in Kabul, however, said they were still confirming the official toll figure as they worked to reach remote areas.
We’ll bring you more updates as they arrive.
Updated
