Afghanistan Flash Update #2: Earthquake in Nangarhar Province (2 September 2025, as of 16:00)

Highlights

• Humanitarian partners are ramping up response efforts following the devastating 6.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Nangarhar Province, eastern Afghanistan late on 31 August 2025.
• Search and rescue efforts are ongoing with the de facto authorities (DfA) now reporting just over 1,400 people killed, a further 3,100 injured and up to 5,400 homes destroyed. 25 inter-agency assessment teams reached some of the affected areas late afternoon on 1 September with initial indications that needs are both widespread and severe: assessment teams are endeavouring to verify initially reported figures.
• The DfA have made three helicopters available at Jalalabad airport, Nangarhar Province, to transport the wounded from affected areas to provincial and regional hospitals, reportedly medevacing hundreds of people on 1 September alone.
• The impact of the earthquake has been exacerbated by inadequate or weakly constructed houses made of dry masonry, stone and timber which lack seismic resistance elements, along with heavy rainfall in the preceding days which loosened ground.
• The Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Joyce Msuya, has approved an initial allocation of US$5 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to help kickstart the response which will be matched by a $5 million Reserve Allocation from the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund. Additional support has been mobilised from other donors, with the United Kingdom announcing a £1 million contribution to support mobile health teams and the provision of emergency medical kits, dignity kits and shelters for displaced families. Outreach to donors to mobilize additional resources is ongoing.
• Urgent priorities remain emergency shelter and non-food items (ES/NFIs), critical medical supplies, drinking water, emergency food assistance and emergency sanitation facilities.

Humanitarian Needs and Response

Humanitarian partners continue to coordinate with the relevant line ministries and provincial directorates of the DfA, including the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy among others. Chapa Dara, Chawkay, Dara-e-Pech, Nurgal and Watapur districts in Kunar Province and Dara-e-Nur District in Nangarhar Province remain the most affected, while Alingar, Mehtarlam and Qarghayi districts in Laghman Province, and Jalalabad city, Behsud and Kuz Kunar districts in Nangarhar Province have also sustained loss of life and severe damage.

Currently, 25 joint assessment teams are deployed across affected areas in Chapa Dara (Into and Watala), Chawkay (Amreeo-Tangi, Anderlachak, Anderlachak-Hanging, Kagizy and Wara-Meena) and Nurgal (Arit, Deming, Kaly, Mamagul, Massaud, Shalut, Schumacher, Suhail-Tangi, Wadeer) districts of Kunar Province and Dara-e-Pech (Tantilever and Kurangal) District of Nangarhar Province.

Sector-specific updates available to date are as follows:

Education: Partners confirmed the destruction of five public schools in Dara-e-Nur District, Nangarhar Province, as well as damage to many schools and community-based education classes, including teaching and learning materials. Immediate priorities include assessing the availability of tents and teaching and learning materials to set up child-friendly spaces and offering mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), in addition to recreational activities to keep children protected from further harm by debris. Once the structural assessments are completed, Education Cluster partners will prioritize the repair of schools and learning spaces to ensure children’s learning continuity in conducive spaces. A cluster meeting is scheduled for 2 September, meanwhile the cluster has engaged the Ministry of Education at national and sub-national level.

ES/NFI: Priority needs include the distribution of life-saving shelter materials (including tents, tarpaulins and emergency shelter kits) and essential NFIs for the most vulnerable households who have lost their homes or face sub-standard shelter conditions following the quake. Special attention is being given to the most at-risk groups including women-headed households, households with pregnant and breastfeeding women, people living with disability and other people with significant needs. A total of 14,000 available tents has been confirmed by UNHCR and IOM, while distributions of NFI emergency kits will start shortly. An additional priority is the removal of rubble through heavy machinery which is taking place in coordination with the DfA and Logistics Working Group.

Food Security and Agriculture (FSAC): Partners have started to provide ready-to-eat meals, including high-energy biscuits and hot meals. While critical emergency agricultural assessments of the impact on livestock and cropland are ongoing, the FSAC Cluster is developing a detailed plan for the earthquake response aimed at ensuring food security and bridging immediate life-saving assistance with early recovery interventions.

Nutrition: Immediate priorities include confirming access to critical nutrition service sites and identifying damaged nutrition facilities to restore service delivery. Partners are working to establish the number of 0 to 6 months old children who were orphaned to ensure immediate access to treatment and preventive nutrition services. Further needs include the delivery of Blanket Supplementary Feeding Programme for children aged 6 to 59 months old, as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women among the affected population along with the re-establishment of Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition counselling and maternal nutrition support.The Cluster has issued a joint statement to protect and promote breastfeeding while monitoring and regulating the use of breastmilk substitutes to prevent inappropriate use.Meanwhile, the cluster is prepositioning supplies in the affected areas and planning to participate in assessments to further understand nutrition needs while also mapping population settlements to plan provision of services through available nutrition sites or the need establishing Mobile Health and Nutrition Teams. The cluster calls for integrated nutrition messaging alongside food distributions, the provision of warm clothing, blankets, heaters and fuel to pregnant and breastfeeding women with acute malnutrition and the distribution of hygiene kits to children under five with severe acute malnutrition. At the national level, the Nutrition Cluster has held bilateral meetings with UNICEF and WFP on prepositioned supplies in the eastern region with a meeting of the sub-national Nutrition Cluster scheduled for 2 September. The sub-national Cluster is also coordinating with the Public Health Directorate.

Health: The regional Health Cluster, in close coordination with the Provincial Public Health Director, HealthNet TPO and other provincial departments swiftly mobilized health emergency response teams to the most affected districts: Nurgal and Chawkay in Kunar Province and Alingar and Qarghayi in Laghman Province. Urgent needs include trauma care, the continuation of primary health care and reproductive health services, MHPSS as well as physical rehabilitation services along with the provision of emergency medical kits and supplies, rehabilitation of damaged health facilities and transportation for injured individuals to health centers. Additionally, risks for potential disease outbreaks, such as measles and acute watery diarrhea, are being monitored. Static health facilities and 20 Mobile Health Teams have been mobilized by agencies implementing Basic Package of Health Services and will continue to provide trauma care. Nangarhar Regional Hospital and Kunar Provincial Hospital have declared emergencies and mobilized all available medical staff. Community Health Workers are actively supporting the provision of health services in affected areas. WHO and the sub-national Health Cluster have supplied emergency health kits to support response efforts. Additional ambulances with medical personnel have also been deployed from Nangarhar Province to support the referral and treatment of injured individuals from Kunar Province. Health Cluster partners AADA, AYSO, HealthNet-TPO, IRC, MMRCA and WADAN are supporting immediate response efforts. The Health Cluster is underscoring the need for integrated health, WASH and shelter assistance.

Protection: Immediate response efforts include the provision of cash for people with protection concerns, setting up safe spaces as well as the referral of the most severe protection cases. Partners have started to collect initial protection concerns, including child separation, risks for gender-based violence, unsafe shelters and risks of eviction through assessments, protection monitoring, the Awaaz hotline and other feedback platforms. For a comprehensive response, partners are also mapping pre-earthquake vulnerabilities among returnees and displaced people in affected areas. Additionally, partners are collecting information on damaged protection infrastructure, including community centres, child-friendly spaces, safe spaces for women and other community service centres such as civil documentation offices. The sub-national coordination team is coordinating with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and closely working with over ten partners to map areas without protection services and to document partner inputs, including from authorities and specialized staff (i.e. case workers, psychologists, community mobilizers).

The Protection Area of Responsibility (AoR) on gender-based violence (GBV) notes the distribution of dignity kits and provision of MHPSSas immediate priorities and confirms available stock of 11,680 dignity kits in the eastern region. Additional key actions include the distribution of other relevant NFIs, referrals and GBV case management. The AoR warns that the crisis will increase exposure of women, girls and marginalized groups to various forms of violence, including sexual exploitation and abuse and that existing risks will be compounded by overcrowded shelters, lack of privacy and the breakdown of protection systems, while disruption of protection services and fear of stigma may prevent survivors from seeking support.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH): Immediate response priorities for partners include the provision of safe drinking water and emergency sanitation facilities to mitigate disease outbreaks, the distribution of critical WASH supplies and hygiene promotion activities, with water trucking to begin immediately once needs are verified through ongoing assessments. WASH Cluster partners DACAAR, IOM, PU-AMI and UNICEF have confirmed capacity to provide a range of emergency WASH activities, including distributing supplies and providing hygiene promotion. Stockpiles include some 700 emergency latrine kits and 3,200 hygiene/family kits which will be released to partners as required. The Cluster has activated coordination taskforce meetings at the regional level.

Coordination

OCHA continues to coordinate the emergency response on behalf of humanitarian partners through joint Operational Coordination Team meetings held in the provinces and through the Kabul-based Inter-Cluster Coordination Team (ICCT). A meeting of the Humanitarian Country Team took place on 2 September with an ICCT meeting scheduled for 3 September to discuss development of the earthquake emergency response plan.

On 2 September, the DfA called for an Emergency Coordination Meeting on the Earthquake Response between humanitarian partners and relevant line ministries, during which priority needs and gaps were discussed, along with exemptions for Memorandums of Understandings required for project implementation, female participation in the response and information sharing.

In addition to immediate response efforts, OCHA is also supporting advocacy and resource mobilization activities at national and global level to appeal for further funding.

For further information, please contact:
Kate Carey, Deputy Head of Office, OCHA Afghanistan, carey2@un.org