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Afghan men search for victims after an earthquake in the Zenda Jan district of Herat province in western Afghanistan.

Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi / dpa

According to the Taliban government, significantly fewer people were killed in the severe earthquake in western Afghanistan about a week ago than initially feared. The Ministry of Civil Protection on Friday revised the death toll down by more than half to 1000,2000. In addition, 1320,<> injured were counted, and about <>,<> houses were completely destroyed, a ministry spokesman said.

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Previously, there had been talk of over 2400 deaths. The information so far has been based on estimates, the spokesman continued. The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs had already estimated the death toll at around 1300,20 on Tuesday. According to Afghan government officials, the earthquake last Saturday razed around <> villages in the northwest of the country to the ground.

Despite the lower death toll, the consequences of the earthquake threaten to further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country. After several decades of conflict, many houses in the region are poorly built or no longer in good condition. As a result, earthquakes often cause great damage. The tremors are the most devastating in Afghanistan in years. Again and again there are severe earthquakes in the region, where the Arabian, Indian and Eurasian plates meet. In 2022, an earthquake in the east of the country killed 1000 people.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is currently warning of famine in Afghanistan due to rapidly declining financial resources. "The situation is pretty hopeless," WFP's regional director for Asia and the Pacific, John Aylieff, recently told the editorial network Germany (RND). Humanitarian aid programmes in Afghanistan are "drastically underfunded".

mfh/Reuters