Death toll from Afghan quake rises, including 8 members of refugee family returned from Iran

Neighbor Mohibullah Niazi searches through items piled up at a house damaged by an earthquake in the village of Ittefaq, on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai) 2026-04-04T11:36:59Z ITTEFAQ, Afghanistan (AP) — For several minutes after the earthquake struck, he could hear their screams.

Then there was silence.

Mohibullah Niazi, a neighbor who helped in the rescue efforts, said Saturday that the eight people killed on the outskirts of Kabul after a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan the previous night were a refugee family recently returned from neighboring Iran.

There was only one survivor: a boy of around 3 years old, who was injured and has been hospitalized in Kabul.

Afghanistan’s deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat on Saturday increased the overall death toll from the quake to 12, with another four people injured.

Fitrat said five homes were destroyed and another 33 significantly damaged, affecting 40 families in the provinces of Kabul, Panjshir, Logar, Nangarhar, Laghman and Nuristan.

The Afghanistan Disaster Management Authority put the overall death toll at nine.

The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.

The family near Kabul was among the millions of Afghan refugees who have recently returned from Iran and Pakistan, after both countries launched crackdowns in 2023 on foreigners — particularly Afghans — living in their countries.

They had arrived 15 days ago and were living in a tent on land next to Niazi’s home.

The family head, Najibullah, who was about 50 years old, “had no other shelter,” Niazi said. “He was a very poor person.” ‘We tried our best’ The family had set their tent up next to a wall separating the plot of land from Niazi’s home, which stood on higher ground, in the village of Ittefaq on the eastern outskirts of the Afghan capital.

Heavy rains over the past several days, which have led to deadly floods in many parts of Afghanistan, had left the ground sodden and soft.

When the earthquake struck, the wall collapsed on the family. “My daughter shouted to me that a wall had fallen on them.

The whole family ran, but there were so many big rocks,” Niazi recounted Saturday as he stood at the scene. “We tried our best.” Read More On Saturday morning, piles of bricks and mud were all that were left, along with blankets, cooking utensils and other personal belongings salvaged from the rubble and set into a pile. “For about three minu

原文链接: AP News