At his residence in Jalalabad, roughly 50 kilometres away from the epicentre, Dr. Sahak and his spouse stormed out of their bed room to search out their eight kids already within the hallway.
“I instantly considered Herat,” the Afghan doctor in his late forties informed me, referring to the earthquakes that devastated the nation’s western province in 2023. “I might inform that the influence can be large as properly.”
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 reside below the identical roof in distant, hard-to-reach places.
Inside seconds, their houses constructed of mud and unfastened stones would crumble. Roads would disappear below 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 foremost hospital knowledgeable him. Some residents would doubtless be injured.
By 1am, the calls grew extra pressing: “We obtained a number of accidents from completely different areas and the scenario will not be good. If potential, present us with help!”
Racing the monsoon
Dr. Sahak requested his WHO workforce to satisfy him on the group’s warehouse in Jalalabad. As he and his colleagues drove by way of the darkish, rain started to fall – the monsoon that might complicate all the things, 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.
“Thankfully, we had been in a position to shortly attain probably the most affected space,” Dr. Sahak mentioned.
On September 2, 2025, Dr. Abdul Mateen Sahak and his WHO workforce visited a hospital in Kunar Province to observe emergency healthcare companies for individuals affected by the earthquake.
Into Nurgal District
His preliminary area workforce 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 pressure of 18 docs, nurses, and pharmacists – “six of them had been feminine docs and midwives,” he mentioned. That first day, WHO managed to airlift 23 metric tonnes of drugs 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 lifeless, 3,640 injured, and 6,700 homes broken.
He and his workforce reached Nurgal District on Monday afternoon aboard an armoured car. “Many roads had been closed as a result of large stones had been falling from the mountains,” he mentioned. On the lanes that remained open, crowds had been slowing down site visitors – hundreds of civilians dashing 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 mentioned. Volunteer rescuers streamed in from neighbouring districts to clear rubble, carry the injured, and have a tendency to the lifeless.
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 dwelling with him…22 of them had died within the earthquake,” Dr. Sahak mentioned. “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 girl 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 convey 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 workforce visited the regional hospital of Asadabad, in Kunar Province, to observe emergency healthcare companies for individuals affected by the earthquake.
Girls on the frontline
In a rustic the place strict gender guidelines govern public life, the earthquake briefly broke down boundaries.
“Within the first few days, everybody – women and men – was rescuing the individuals,” Dr. Sahak mentioned. 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. “Many of the specialist docs, notably the ladies, left the nation…We now have issue discovering skilled workers.”
The influence reached his own residence. His eldest daughter had been in her fifth yr of medical college in Kabul when the brand new authorities barred girls from larger schooling.
“Now sadly, she is at residence,” he mentioned. “She will be able to do nothing; there is no such thing as a likelihood for her to finish her schooling.”
A household’s worry
From the outset, the WHO’s process was to maintain clinics operating by offering technical steerage, medical provides, and clear directions. It additionally meant providing phrases of encouragement to the medical workers. “We informed them: ‘You might be heroes!’” Dr. Sahak recalled.
As he cheered on native docs, his household again in Jalalabad had been apprehensive sick, following the information. He had spent a profession operating hospitals and main emergency responses throughout Afghanistan, however this catastrophe struck too near residence.
That first evening, 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 mentioned.
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 following morning, he was again on the path.
On September 2, 2025, Dr. Abdul Mateen Sahak and his WHO workforce 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, after I spoke to him, the figures in Dr. Sahak’s ledger informed 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 programs.
WHO has requested for $4 million to ship lifesaving well being interventions and broaden cellular well being companies. About 800 essential 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 workforce visited on Tuesday.
A mom’s phrases
Outdoors the well being facility, they seen two survivors pushed by the solar right into a slender strip of shade alongside a wall – an older lady and her daughter, each just lately discharged, each alone.
They had been alive, however their remaining 13 relations had been lifeless
“They had been alive, however their remaining 13 relations had been lifeless,” Dr. Sahak mentioned. 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 every week or two. The director agreed. That evening, again residence, he recounted the scene to his household. “All of them had been crying, they usually had been even unable to have dinner,” he mentioned. By then, even his mom now not begged him to remain.
“Please go there and help the individuals,” she informed him.
