Another deadly quake, and a cascade of calamities for Afghanistan

Khalil Ur Rahman Babakhil, left, clears rubble in the village of Shamraz in Kunar Province, Afghanistan on Sept. 2, 2025. Another powerful earthquake struck northern Afghanistan just before 1 a.m. local time Monday, killing at least 20 people, injuring more than 520 others and damaging countless buildings, according to Afghan authorities. (Safiullah Padshah/The New York Times)

By SAFIULLAH PADSHAH, YAQOOB AKBARY, ELIAN PELTIER and MIKE IVES

Ghulam Mahmoodi was sleeping with his six relatives in their house’s single bedroom when a powerful tremor jolted him from bed early Monday.

He grabbed two of his daughters, and they rushed outside into the thick of northern Afghanistan’s night. Then, Mahmoodi, 40, went back inside to rescue his mother and his wife.

But their third daughter, Zainab, remained stuck under debris: The hill overlooking their house had collapsed on its roof, and hours later, Zainab, 10, was declared dead.

The 6.3 magnitude quake that struck northern Afghanistan just before 1 a.m. local time Monday killed at least 20 people, injured more than 520 others and damaged countless buildings, including one of the country’s most iconic landmarks, according to Afghan authorities. It was the latest natural disaster to batter the ailing nation.

The quake’s epicenter was near the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, home to about 500,000 people and known for its magnificent 15th-century Blue Mosque, whose iconic turquoise tiles fell from its minarets. Parts of its walls and historical writings were also destroyed in the quake.

Households were swallowed under the rubble. The ordeal of Mahmoodi’s family and the shattered lives in the northern provinces of Balkh and Samangan echo the destruction from another earthquake Afghan officials have said killed at least 2,200 people in eastern Afghanistan in August.

The quake was the latest in a cascade of catastrophes to hit Afghanistan this year, including the severe impact of aid cuts, the return of more than 2 million Afghans from neighboring countries and the prospect of a war with neighboring Pakistan.

As Afghanistan moves closer to winter, households displaced by the quake in August are still sleeping in tents. Families have returned from Pakistan and Iran in droves amid rising xenophobia, and many are struggling to find a home as housing prices in cities like Kabul, the capital, have skyrocketed.

“Right now, there is nothing to eat, and I’m the only breadwinner of the house,” said Mahmoodi, who said he earned the equivalent of $75 a month as a laborer.

By Monday night, it was unclear if the death toll would increase sharply or not, and if rescue teams from the Afghan emergency services and international nonprofits had reached all the affected areas. The Afghan Ministry of Defense mentioned deaths and injuries in a statement but did not provide figures.

On Monday afternoon, about 20 injured people rested on beds at a hospital in Mazar-i-Sharif, one of Afghanistan’s largest cities. Some wore heavy bandages stained with blood around their limbs or heads. Nakarulden, a farmer who goes by his first name, said he had been traveling back to Mazar-i-Sharif with fellow agricultural workers after laboring in rice fields when the quake struck and a boulder fell on their car. He said three men from his group had died.

The quake shattered fragile livelihoods. Abdul Aziz Kamawal said doctors had told him he needed the equivalent of $600 for surgery on his broken femur — four months’ salary as an employee in an iron factory.

“I can’t even support my family, so how I can pay the price of surgery?” Kamawal, 18, said in a wheelchair at the hospital.

Afghanistan is prone to earthquakes because it lies at the convergence of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. The August quake flattened villages in hard-to-reach mountainous areas and caused at least $183 million in damage, according to the World Bank — equivalent to about 1% of the country’s gross domestic product.

A previous earthquake in northwestern Afghanistan killed nearly 1,500 people in 2023, according to official figures.

Four years after the Taliban reclaimed power in Afghanistan, more than half the country’s 42 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance. The country, isolated from much of the world except for a few neighbors, has been further strained by the recent return of more than 2 million Afghans.

A sharp drop in foreign aid this year, driven by cuts by the Trump administration and European countries, has forced the closure of hundreds of health care facilities.

The quake Monday hit the provinces of Samangan and Balkh in the north, near the border with Uzbekistan. In Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh, locals were clearing debris from the grounds of the Blue Mosque, an important pilgrimage site among Shia Muslims and a place of celebrations for Nowruz, the Persian New Year. The mosque is said to be the burial site of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and the first Shia imam.

The mosque was still standing Monday evening, but visitors, worshippers and journalists were barred from entering the complex.

In Mahmoodi’s lush village of Muhammad Rahim Sarkhel, a 90-minute drive from Mazar-i-Sharif, his house, with all the family’s possessions and food, remained buried under rubble nearly a day after the quake woke him up.

“Now I have nothing — no food, no home and no hope for surviving,” he said.