Richmond Hill, Canada, 18 September 2025 – On August 31 at midnight, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Afghanistan's eastern Kunar Province near the Pakistan border. Despite being moderate in magnitude, the earthquake caused extensive destruction and claimed more than 3,500 lives, including many women and children. Now, the United Nations University (UNU) scientists attribute this significant death toll to Afghanistan's decades of conflict and instability, and the nation's increasing diplomatic isolation following the Taliban takeover in 2021.
A new damage assessment of the August 31 earthquake by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health ( UNU-INWEH ) finds that over 13,000 buildings were damaged or collapsed within 50 kilometers of the earthquake's center in eastern Afghanistan. Some villages experienced up to 90% of their buildings impacted. The publication identifies low-quality construction, poor disaster management, and the broader socio-political context as the key contributors to the earthquake's impact.
Persistent economic hardship and underdevelopment have forced millions of Afghans to live in houses that stand little chance against earthquakes. Most buildings in the impacted areas were made of mud bricks or rough stone with minimal engineering and collapsed as soon as the earthquake struck. With the country more isolated than ever and international funding for infrastructure and emergency relief declining, similar disasters are expected to happen again if no decisive action is taken.
"The August 31 earthquake in Afghanistan showed how even moderate earthquakes can cause catastrophic losses when fragile infrastructure and weak preparedness leave communities exposed," said Dr. Manoochehr Shirzaei , the Chief Scientist of the Global Environmental Intelligence Lab at UNU-INWEH. "Our analysis highlights the urgent need in Afghanistan for sustained investment in safer construction and disaster risk reduction. Without these measures, future earthquakes will bring the same devastation at the very least."
The earthquake's impact fell especially hard on women and girls, who face strict gender-based restrictions. Many female survivors could not access timely medical care because they were barred from seeing male doctors without a chaperone. Restrictions on women's mobility and bans on female aid workers also means that relief supplies and assistance often could not reach those most in need. What worsened the shortage of female healthcare workers was the ban on women's medical education that further limited the nation's treatment capacity for the affected women and girls.
"The recent earthquake in Afghanistan revealed the disproportional impacts of a natural disaster on the women and girls within a restricted society," said Professor Kaveh Madani , the Director of UNU-INWEH. "Systematic exclusion of women from education, employment, and decision-making make societies weaker and more vulnerable to disasters."
Other key contributors identified by the analysis include the earthquake's timing, its shallow depth, and heavy monsoon rainfall in the weeks before the event. Striking just before midnight, most residents were indoors and asleep, leaving them trapped when buildings began to collapse. With an origin only 8 km below the surface, the shaking was concentrated directly beneath the populated areas of Kunar Province, placing structures under severe stress. To make matters worse, weeks of monsoon rain had loosened slopes, and the earthquake triggered landslides that buried roads and hamlets under rubble.
The publication concludes that the increasing international isolation of Afghanistan significantly limited the disaster relief aid and support by the international community, making the Afghan population deeply vulnerable. The authors call for improving the resilience of disaster relief frameworks to ensure that people living under sanctioned governments are not excluded from humanitarian aid and disaster recovery efforts.
Key Findings:
About 13,241 buildings within 50 km of the affected area — were damaged or destroyed.
In some villages, 90% or more of buildings were destroyed, leaving residents without shelter.
Ground deformation reached up to 23 cm during the 31 August mainshock.
The aftershock on September 4 also caused about 17 cm of ground deformation.
Collapsed buildings were mainly rural mudbrick or adobe houses, along with some small masonry shops and community buildings.
Landslides triggered by rain-soaked slopes buried villages and blocked roads, cutting off aid and delaying rescue efforts.
Afghanistan's isolation and drastic aid cuts left disaster response under-resourced and slowed international relief.
Poverty, unsafe housing on risky terrain, and lack of preparedness amplified losses and left survivors feeling abandoned.
Gender restrictions and a shortage of female health workers created life-threatening barriers to medical care and aid for women and girls.
The earthquake struck just before midnight, when most residents were indoors and asleep, leaving them trapped in collapsing structures.
At a depth of about 8 km, the earthquake was very shallow, producing intense surface shaking that greatly increased the damage.
Read the publication: Shirzaei, M., Daqiq, M. T., Lucy, J., Werth, S., Sharma, R., Velasco, M. J., Matin, M., Madani, K. (2025). Damage Assessment of Afghanistan's August 2025 Earthquake. United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, doi: 10.53328/INR25MSIR002
