Afghanistan quake.

FOR the hapless people of Afghanistan, the list of miseries just doesn't seem to end. The latest catastrophe to hit the country has been the 6.1 magnitude earthquake that struck early on Wednesday morning. The worst hit has been the eastern province of Paktika, which borders Pakistan. The devastation is believed to be considerable. At the time of writing, the list of fatalities was at least 1,000, with several hundred injured. Unfortunately, the casualty numbers are bound to rise as more information comes in from remote, mountainous villages. Shocks were felt as far away as India. In Pakistan, the tremors were felt in many parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as Islamabad, while the KP Disaster Management Authority said a man was killed in Lakki Marwat in a roof collapse incident linked to the quake.

The immediate priority for Afghanistan's neighbours as well as the international community should be to provide medical help to those who critically need it. Over four decades of war have resulted in little by way of a proper emergency management system in Afghanistan, while the present...

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