“Afghanistan Is in No Way Prepared for Disasters” – WHH Launches Emergency Relief After Earthquake
After earthquake in northern Afghanistan: Welthungerhilfe has teams on the ground, provides €200,000 in emergency aid
Bonn/Berlin, 2025-11-04. Following a severe earthquake in northern Afghanistan, the people affected urgently need humanitarian assistance. “Many houses have been destroyed, and winter is just around the corner,” says Welthungerhilfe (WHH) Country Director Thomas tenBoer. WHH has been active for years in the provinces of Balkh and Samangan, which were hit hardest by the quake. The organization immediately dispatched teams to the devastated villages to assess the damage and initiate rapid relief measures. An initial €200,000 (approx. USD 230,000) in emergency assistance has been made available.
“As a first step, we are supporting affected families with cash assistance, enabling them to buy what they need most urgently,” explains tenBoer. “This could be food or simple building materials, for example. In this way, we also help to strengthen local markets.”
Food security in the earthquake region has already been precarious: five consecutive years of drought have led to water shortages and crop failures. This year’s drought has been the worst yet. Around 1.1 million people in Balkh and Samangan provinces are suffering from hunger – more than one-third of the population. Across Afghanistan, approximately 13.8 million people, or 28 percent of the population, are affected.
“Our next step is to examine how we can support the reconstruction or repair of houses as quickly as possible,” tenBoer continues. “We cannot accommodate people in tents when temperatures are below freezing.” Even before the earthquake, housing availability has been critically limited due to the large number of returnees from Pakistan and Iran. Since the beginning of the year, nearly two million Afghans have been deported from these countries, most of them left without shelter or livelihoods. At the same time, international support for Afghanistan is declining. “The country is on its knees and in no way prepared for disasters. The earthquake further worsens the already dire humanitarian situation,” tenBoer warns.
Earthquakes occur frequently in Afghanistan. The most recent severe quake struck the east of the country on 31 August this year, killing more than 2,200 people. People in the region also continue to need assistance as winter approaches.
Welthungerhilfe is one of the largest private aid organizations in Germany; it is politically independent and non-denominational. With courage and determination, it is striving for a world without hunger. Since it was founded on December 14, 1962, 12,777 overseas projects in about 72 countries and territories have been supported with 5.42 billion euros. Welthungerhilfe follows the principle of empowering people to help themselves to sustainably improve their living conditions, through approaches ranging from fast disaster relief to reconstruction and long-term development cooperation projects with national and international partner organizations.
