Even before the earthquake in Afghanistan on Saturday that reduced villages and hamlets across the western province of Herat to dust, doctors and healthcare workers at the Herat regional hospital were struggling to cope.
Malnutrition, poverty and a lack of medicines and equipment were already putting an unbearable strain on the hospital. Now, days after the deadly quakes that are believed to have claimed more than 3,000 lives, and as people in the villages still dig with their hands in the rubble to find their loved ones, the hospital cannot take any more patients.
According to local people, the streets leading to the hospital have been blocked by Taliban fighters in recent days, with armed men stopping anyone trying to access medical help and beating with pipes and guns those attempting to find relatives.
In the hospital, some of those who have made it out of their flattened homes alive lie in beds in the courtyard or sit on floors. Exhausted health workers do what they can but supplies are running low and oxygen reserves are almost gone. Patients are waiting hours or days for urgent medical treatment with no pain relief.
On a bed in a corner, Shamail’s body is broken and bloodied. Her jaw is crushed and her facial injuries are so severe that she can’t speak. Sitting by her bedside, her mother says Shamail’s leg is broken and her spine compressed by falling debris.
Last Saturday, Shamail was at home with her two young daughters when the 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit their village in the Naib Rafi area of Herat province. As her mother speaks of how Shamail was pulled from the rubble, leaving her two little girls’ bodies in the debris of their family home, tears seep from Shamail’s swollen eyes.
Many of those who made it to the regional hospital said they lost most – and in some cases all – of their immediate family.
Unicef said more than 90% of those reported killed by the earthquake so far are women and children.
Fatima, 40, was trapped under the rubble for 20 hours. She lost seven members of her family – including all but one of her children. Now she cannot see, with medics unable to tell her if she will ever regain her sight.
The earthquakes that have rocked Herat since Saturday have brought death and devastation to a region already tortured by hunger, disease and instability. Entire hamlets and villages have been destroyed. One senior Taliban official said that more than 400 houses collapsed in just one village.
Patients and their families at Herat regional hospital say that when the earthquake hit on Saturday, their houses crumbled and they had nowhere to hide.
The quake on Saturday has been followed by further aftershocks throughout the week. On Wednesday another powerful tremor shook western Afghanistan, 17 miles from Herat city. Medics at the regional hospital say they felt the ground shaking and, in the ensuing hours, injured people began arriving in large numbers but the hospital was already overwhelmed.
On Sunday, the Taliban’s local administration announced that they had transferred survivors of the earthquake to the hospital, but authorities are facing huge challenges in relief and rescue efforts. Many families at the hospital say that no help arrived after the earthquakes occurred. Days later, people are frantically digging for those they believe are still trapped under their flattened homes.
“I will never forget the shock of the quake,” Samira* says at the hospital, where she is waiting for news about her four daughters. They all survived the earthquake and had to be pulled out of the rubble but Samira was badly injured. Her baby son was with her mother-in-law when the house began to collapse around them. In the hours after the quake, Samira says she could hear her mother-in-law’s voice in the wreckage. While they waited in vain for help to arrive, Samira frantically tried to reach her and her baby.
“I could hear my mother-in-law moaning under the rubble,” she says. “I tried to save her by digging the rubble, but there were several earthquakes. I ran away from the rubble during the earthquakes, and when everything had stopped we came back and began to dig again.”
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) urged world leaders not to forget Afghanistan. “Let’s not add ‘forgotten’ to the long list of tragedies that this resilient nation has already endured,” Tommaso Della Longa, the IFRC spokesperson, said.
Fearful of what is to come, people in more than 2,000 villages across Herat province have left their homes since the weekend. Hundreds more are also leaving Herat city. Patients, families and medics at the hospital, however, have nowhere to go.
* Name has been changed
A version of this story first appeared on Rukhshana Media
