Afghans Dig with Bare Hands for Quake Survivors

28/03/2002| IslamWeb

NAHRIN, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghans dug with their hands through the rubble of the flattened town of Nahrin Wednesday in hopes of finding survivors of a series of earthquakes that officials say killed well over 2,000 people. (Read photo caption within)
More tremors shook the brown moonscape under the feet of interim leader Hamid Karzai, who told survivors in the devastated northern market town in the foothills of the Hindu Kush that everything possible was being done to help them.
Three significant tremors rocked the area during Karzai's visit of several hours, causing his party to cluster nervously round him. Smaller tremors were felt every 10 to 15 minutes.
Homeless people sat on carpets -- for some the only thing they had left -- as clouds of dust were kicked up around them by each fresh tremor.
During one, a young girl stood transfixed with terror as the earth seemed to ripple around her feet.
The tremors added to the danger of rescue work and to the already monumental task of bringing relief to the survivors, with two of the three roads into the area blocked by landslides.
Villages around Nahrin, a district capital which had a population of 10,000, were also hit but there was little information about how many people died because it was virtually impossible to reach them.
The town of mud-brick buildings that not long ago was on the front line of battles between the then ruling Taliban and the opposition Northern Alliance, is now rubble.
People clawed at the debris with their hands in desperate hope of finding someone alive. All they found, as the first group of journalists reached the town, were corpses.

PHOTO CAPTION:
An eight-year-old boy who was wounded in the earthquake in northern Afghanistan, bites his thumb in Nahrin, Wednesday, March 27, 2002. Monday's quake struck in a desperately poor region already suffering the effects of years of drought and war. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Aini Waer)