ZENDA JAN It was about 11 in the morning when Nazaneen’s home village disappeared.
– I didn’t understand what happened. The ground shook once and suddenly all the houses collapsed.
This is how a 45-year-old grandmother recounts the events in a tent in the village of Qala Nawaq in western Afghanistan. Tears roll down the woman’s cheeks as she recalls October 7, when a 6.3 Richter earthquake hit Herat province.
The earthquake killed approximately 1,384 people and injured 1,853. More than 21,000 homes were completely or partially destroyed, affecting the lives of up to 154,000 people.
There has been no end in sight to the aftershocks; the most recent was Sunday, October 29. The destruction was greatest here in the Zenda Jan area west of the city of Herat. Entire villages disappeared from the map.
Still ten days after the last big earthquake, the village of Qala Nawaq is like the scene of the end of the world. Not a single house is standing. Emergency aid has arrived, for example in the form of tents, but there is no going back to the way things were.
At the time of the first earthquake, Nazaneen was in the neighboring village, where she still lived then. He had to spend about an hour under the ruins of his house.
Nazaneen’s 24-year-old son, Juma Gul, had his mother saved. Nazaneen’s arm had been severed, and representatives of the Taliban regime, who arrived in the evening, took her to a hospital in the city of Herat.
After the two sisters and brother had been rescued, Gul hurried to the village of Qala Nawaq, where one of his brothers had been living with his family. There was complete destruction ahead. 11 family members had died.
Only one was pulled out alive: a seven-year-old boy Musa.
– I couldn’t believe that Musa was still alive, says Gul.
The boy is now sitting next to his grandmother and uncle, looking confused, playing with a white balloon.
Musa was the reason that the grandmother decided to come and live with the boy in this village.
– He is alone. She has no one, Nazaneen says, holding back tears again.
The victims of the earthquake were mostly women and children
The boy told his uncle that his father and mother had called for help from under the rubble. Musa’s mother had been pregnant for the last time.
They just weren’t rescued in time enough. Qala Nawaq is off the main road.
About a third of the inhabitants of this village died in the earthquake. Most of the victims, both here and in other earthquake areas, were women and children – mainly because of the old culture. Men usually work outside, and women take care of the children inside.
Mass graves were hurriedly dug outside the village. Now they are decorated with children’s crayons as memories of small victims.
Musa had to be persuaded to eat and drink. Gul says that the boy still does not fully understand what has happened to him.
Nazaneen is deeply upset.
– I am afraid of new earthquakes. When I try to sleep at night, I can’t, Grandma says.
Women need psychological help
In the village of Qala Nawaq, international aid is coordinated by the Norwegian Refugee Council NRC. The organization’s local female aid worker says that the effects of the earthquake have been most serious for women.
She doesn’t want to use her name in the interview, because female workers are a sensitive topic: the Taliban banned Afghan women’s organizations from working in December 2022. However, at the local level, many organizations have quietly negotiated women back to work. Here, too, the NRC always has two women present.
– The women tell me that they need psychological counseling the most, the employee says.
Afghanistan was already a serious women mental health crisis – according to the UN, earthquakes will only make it worse. This village currently does not offer mental health services, nor does it offer much health care. According to the NRC, this is due to a lack of funding.
Scars weigh on people for a long time, and at the same time they worry about the future.
It’s still warm during the day, but at night the cold is already starting to seep through the thin walls of Nazaneen’s tent – it’s not suitable for winter living.
There is no money either. Nazaneen’s family lost all 10 of their goats, as did several other victims of the earthquake.
– We have nothing to warm ourselves with, says Nazaneen.
Donor countries do not want to finance Afghanistan
No country in the world has recognized the Taliban regime, and the regime’s rules that discriminate against women and girls have made donor countries tighten their purse strings even more.
– We have had difficulty getting funding for anything other than immediate emergency aid, Rebecca RobyNRC’s Afghanistan Advocacy Manager says.
Currently, the country lacks up to 65.8 percent of the aid requested by the UN for this year. The world food program was food aid to be terminated for 10 million Afghans in September.
Left alone women have no hope for the future
Farther away, in a village called Nayab Rafi, the devastation has also been complete. Only the school building on the edge of the village has remained standing, everything else around has turned into piles of stones.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahidin according to the administration plans to build 2,146 houses in earthquake zones. Construction work has already started on the edge of the village. However, there will not be enough new houses for everyone.
A 50-year-old meets me outside the tent village Mary, who has small traditional tattoos on his face. He wants to show what’s left of his life: just a pile of blankets and twisted boxes.
The woman had been with her sister-in-law in the hospital in the city when the earthquake struck. When they returned home, it was total chaos.
– There was no one there who could have saved my children and grandchildren, he says.
So Maria started lifting fallen walls and things herself with her sister-in-law, and hurt her hand.
It took several days to get the bodies of all the family members out.
Only one of Maria’s six children survived, as he was working across the border in Iran. The boy has now come to take care of his widowed mother and wife, who were left alone.
– We live in a tent now, but we can’t eat because of our pain, says Maria.
Eventually, Maria’s son also has to go back to Iran to work, there is no work for him in Afghanistan.
– I don’t know what will happen then. I have no one here, she says tearfully.
Maria starts throwing her things around in a fit of rage. Then the woman breaks down and is left to languish in the middle of the destruction.