At his dwelling in Jalalabad, roughly 50 kilometres away from the epicentre, Dr. Sahak and his spouse stormed out of their bed room to seek out their eight youngsters already within the hallway.
“I instantly considered Herat,” the Afghan doctor in his late forties advised me, referring to the earthquakes that devastated the nation’s western province in 2023. “I may inform that the affect can be big as nicely.”
A local of the Jalalabad space, he knew first-hand what this new catastrophe would imply for the nation’s northeast, the place prolonged households all stay beneath the identical roof in distant, hard-to-reach places.
Inside seconds, their houses constructed of mud and unfastened stones would crumble. Roads would disappear beneath the rubble. Households can be buried alive as they slept.
The primary calls
Dr. Sahak, who leads the native World Well being Group (WHO) emergency workplace, instantly turned to his health-cluster WhatsApp group, a thread that hyperlinks hospitals, clinics and support organisations throughout the area.
Studies started trickling in from Asadabad, the capital of neighboring Kunar Province, the hardest-hit space alongside the Pakistani border. There, the quake had been felt very strongly, town’s principal hospital knowledgeable him. Some residents would doubtless be injured.
By 1am, the calls grew extra pressing: “We acquired a number of accidents from completely different areas and the state of affairs is just not good. If doable, present us with help!”
Racing the monsoon
Dr. Sahak requested his WHO crew to satisfy him on the group’s warehouse in Jalalabad. As he and his colleagues drove by means of the darkish, rain started to fall – the monsoon that will complicate every part, from helicopter landings to ambulance runs, within the first hours of the response.
Quickly, the help pipeline clicked into place. A truck was loaded with medical provides at WHO’s depot, then transferred at Jalalabad’s airport, 5 kilometres away, earlier than a Defence Ministry helicopter lifted pallets towards Nurgal District – the epicentre of the earthquake, halfway between Asadabad and Jalalabad.
“Happily, we had been in a position to rapidly attain essentially the most affected space,” Dr. Sahak stated.
On September 2, 2025, Dr. Abdul Mateen Sahak and his WHO crew visited a hospital in Kunar Province to watch emergency healthcare companies for individuals affected by the earthquake.
Into Nurgal District
His preliminary discipline crew got here down to only 4 individuals: himself, a technical adviser, an emergency focus and a safety assistant.
Inside hours, they drew in Afghan companions from two native NGOs, assembling a drive of 18 docs, nurses, and pharmacists – “six of them had been feminine docs and midwives,” he stated. That first day, WHO managed to airlift 23 metric tonnes of medication to Nurgal District.
In the meantime, the casualty figures stored climbing. “There was information that 500, possibly 600 individuals died. There have been hundreds of accidents and hundreds of homes destroyed,” Dr. Sahak recalled.
5 days later, the official toll is way grimmer: greater than 2,200 useless, 3,640 injured, and 6,700 homes broken.
He and his crew reached Nurgal District on Monday afternoon aboard an armoured automobile. “Many roads had been closed as a result of large stones had been falling from the mountains,” he stated. On the lanes that remained open, crowds had been slowing down visitors – hundreds of civilians speeding in, most of them on foot, to assist the victims.
‘The place is my child?’
As soon as there, Dr. Sahak, a seasoned humanitarian employee, was unprepared for the size of devastation. “We noticed our bodies on the street. They had been ready for the individuals to come back in to bury them,” he stated. Volunteer rescuers streamed in from neighbouring districts to clear rubble, carry the injured, and have a tendency to the useless.
Among the many survivors was a 60-year-old man named Mohammed, whose home had been destroyed.
I couldn’t bear to look this man within the eyes. He was tearing up
“He had a complete of 30 relations residing with him…22 of them had died within the earthquake,” Dr. Sahak stated. “This was surprising for me. I couldn’t bear to look this man within the eyes. He was tearing up.”
On the native clinic, its partitions cracked by the tremors, medical workers handled a quickly rising variety of sufferers beneath tents pitched exterior.
Dr. Sahak met a lady with a number of accidents – pelvic fracture, head trauma, damaged ribs. She struggled to breathe and couldn’t cease crying. “She stored saying: ‘The place is my child! I want my child! Please deliver me my child!’” he recalled. Then he paused. “No, no, she misplaced her child. All of her household.”
On September 2, 2025, Dr. Abdul Mateen Sahak and his WHO crew visited the regional hospital of Asadabad, in Kunar Province, to watch emergency healthcare companies for individuals affected by the earthquake.
Ladies on the frontline
In a rustic the place strict gender guidelines govern public life, the earthquake briefly broke down limitations.
“Within the first few days, everybody – women and men – was rescuing the individuals,” Dr. Sahak stated. Feminine docs and midwives can nonetheless work in Afghanistan, however provided that accompanied to hospitals by a male family member. He didn’t see feminine sufferers being denied care both.
Within the first few days, everybody – women and men – was rescuing the individuals
The deeper disaster, he added, is the exodus of feminine professionals for the reason that Taliban’s return in 2021. “A lot of the specialist docs, significantly the ladies, left the nation…We’ve got problem discovering skilled workers.”
The affect reached his own residence. His eldest daughter had been in her fifth 12 months of medical college in Kabul when the brand new authorities barred girls from greater training.
“Now sadly, she is at dwelling,” he stated. “She will be able to do nothing; there isn’t a probability for her to finish her training.”
A household’s concern
From the outset, the WHO’s activity was to maintain clinics working by offering technical steering, medical provides, and clear directions. It additionally meant providing phrases of encouragement to the medical workers. “We advised them: ‘You’re heroes!’” Dr. Sahak recalled.
As he cheered on native docs, his household again in Jalalabad had been anxious sick, following the information. He had spent a profession working hospitals and main emergency responses throughout Afghanistan, however this catastrophe struck too near dwelling.
That first night time, when he lastly returned to his spouse and kids, it was his 85-year-old mom who greeted him first. “She hugged me for greater than 10 minutes,” he stated.
She gently scolded him and tried to make him promise he wouldn’t return to the stricken areas. However within the poor jap districts of Nurgal, Chawkay, Dara-i-Nur and Alingar, tens of hundreds of individuals had been counting on the WHO to outlive. The subsequent morning, he was again on the path.
On September 2, 2025, Dr. Abdul Mateen Sahak and his WHO crew met two girls, on the regional hospital of Asadabad, in Kunar Province, who had misplaced all of their relations in earthquake, on 31 August 2025.
Ledger of life and demise
By Friday afternoon, once I spoke to him, the figures in Dr. Sahak’s ledger advised the story of the emergency: 46 metric tons of medical provides delivered; greater than 15,000 bottles of lactate, glucose and sodium chloride distributed – intravenous fluids for trauma and dehydration; and 17 WHO surveillance groups deployed to trace the unfold of illness, which the company expects quickly due to the destruction of consuming water sources and sanitation techniques.
WHO has requested for $4 million to ship lifesaving well being interventions and broaden cellular well being companies. About 800 important sufferers had already been rushed to the hospital in Jalalabad. Others had been taken to the regional hospital in Asadabad, which Dr. Sahak and his crew visited on Tuesday.
A mom’s phrases
Outdoors the well being facility, they observed two survivors pushed by the solar right into a slim strip of shade alongside a wall – an older girl and her daughter, each not too long ago discharged, each alone.
They had been alive, however their remaining 13 relations had been useless
“They had been alive, however their remaining 13 relations had been useless,” Dr. Sahak stated. There was nobody left to gather them. The daughter, in her twenties, appeared devastated: “She was unable to talk.” Tears streamed down her face.
Moved by their plight, Dr. Sahak requested the hospital to maintain them in a mattress for per week or two. The director agreed. That night time, again dwelling, he recounted the scene to his household. “All of them had been crying, they usually had been even unable to have dinner,” he stated. By then, even his mom not begged him to remain.
“Please go there and help the individuals,” she advised him.
