When the Earth Remembers: Mazar-i-Sharif After the 6.3 Quake
Night in Mazar-i-Sharif is usually the kind of slow, fragrant darkness that invites long cups of tea and the low chatter of old men on benches. On the night the ground woke, that hush was broken by a sound people compared to a distant train, then glass, then the groan of walls unmade.
At 6.3 magnitude and roughly 28 kilometres below the surface, the earthquake’s epicentre was traced near Mazar-i-Sharif by the US Geological Survey. By dawn, provincial health officials were reporting at least 20 dead and some 320 injured across Balkh and Samangan provinces, a preliminary tally that worried medics said would rise as rescuers reached remote hamlets.
The night the earth moved
“We were asleep. Suddenly the house was shaking like a leaf,” said Ahmad, a shopkeeper who lives close to the old bazaar, cradling a blanket against the morning chill. “My children were screaming. We ran into the street. People were holding candles and shouting the names of their neighbours.”
In cities and villages across northern Afghanistan, people poured into the open under a sky nervy with stars. Even in Kabul — some 420 kilometres away — correspondents felt the tremor. For many, the instinctive move was to the streets and courtyards, away from mudbrick walls that have stood for generations but were built for customs and warmth, not seismic resilience.
Blue tiles, broken pieces
The city’s famed Blue Mosque — a 15th-century jewel of turquoise tiles and towering minarets — bears the visible memory of the quake. Photographs and on-the-ground reports showed fragments of tile and masonry from one of its minarets strewn across the courtyard. For locals, the mosque is more than architecture; it is the city’s heart and an anchor for pilgrims and rare visitors.
“Seeing those tiles on the ground felt like seeing a piece of our history fall,” said Farah Naz, a schoolteacher who lives nearby. “You can fix stones, but you can’t stitch feelings as easily.”
On the map of risk: why Afghanistan trembles
Afghanistan sits along a jagged seam in the earth where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet, a region of frequent tremors, particularly along the Hindu Kush range. Earthquakes are not a novelty here; they are a recurring hazard in a landscape already worn thin by decades of conflict, drought, and economic strain.
In the past three years alone, the country has been battered by several lethal quakes: a shallow magnitude-6.0 tremor in August that devastated eastern villages, killing more than 2,200 people; significant shocks in Herat in 2023; and in Nangarhar in 2022 that flattened homes and lives alike. Each time, the pattern repeats: fragile housing stock, steep and remote roads, and communities cut off from immediate help.
Pockets of vulnerability
Most Afghans live in rural areas where homes are built of sun-baked bricks, stone, and mud — materials that keep heat and cold at bay but do little against a violent jolt. “You build what you know with the means you have,” explained Dr. Leyla Shirzada, a civil engineer who has worked on rural reconstruction projects. “Without training, funds, or building codes enforced, resilience becomes a luxury, not a standard.”
Poor communications amplify the danger. Mountainous terrain and aging infrastructure turn an emergency into a long wait. In past disasters, it has taken hours — and sometimes days — for authorities and aid agencies to reach cut-off villages. The result: delayed medical care, slower searches for survivors, and prolonged exposure for those who have lost shelter.
An unraveling safety net
The quake lands on an Afghanistan already strained by a humanitarian crisis. The Taliban administration, in power since 2021, is confronting its third major deadly earthquake during its rule even as international aid — once a lifeline for much of the country’s services — has declined dramatically. The United Nations and humanitarian groups have warned of rising hunger, and millions have been displaced or pushed back from neighbouring countries, putting more people in precarious conditions.
“If you compound natural hazards with economic restrictions, banking paralysis, and drought, you have a catastrophe that keeps renewing itself,” said Martina Kline, a regional analyst with an international aid agency. “The physical shaking is only part of the story. The rest is institutional fragility.”
Beyond the numbers are everyday tragedies: families who lose a breadwinner, a child’s schoolroom turned to rubble, a market stall where a livelihood once hummed now down to splinters. Those losses ripple across communities where social networks are the safety net and are already stretched thin.
Fast facts: the quake at a glance
- Magnitude: 6.3
- Depth: ~28 km
- Epicentre: Near Mazar-i-Sharif, northern Afghanistan
- Preliminary casualties: 20 dead, ~320 injured (Balkh and Samangan provinces)
- Distance to Kabul: ~420 km
Voices from the rubble
“We are hungry and now homeless,” said a woman who gave her name as Habiba, picking through the remnants of her home with slow, precise movements. “We don’t know where to go. The government says help is coming, but we have been waiting before.”
An official health ministry spokesman urged calm and patience, reminding people that assessing the full scale of damage takes time because of the country’s geography. “Our teams are mobilising; we will prioritise the most affected areas,” he told journalists. Yet for many in remote valleys, the arrival of aid depends on weather, road access, and the thin capacity of local responders.
What must change — and what can be done
Long after the headlines fade, reconstruction will demand more than bricks. Experts point to several urgent priorities:
- Investing in seismic-resistant building techniques scaled to local materials and budgets.
- Strengthening early-warning and communications systems to reach rural communities faster.
- Supporting local first responders and training community-based search-and-rescue teams.
- Restoring and expanding humanitarian assistance with clear, accountable channels to reach the most vulnerable.
“You can’t buy resilience overnight,” Dr. Shirzada said. “But you can start with training masons, distributing simple guidelines for safer construction, and investing in community-level preparedness. Small steps save lives.”
Why this matters to the world
Afghanistan’s quake is a reminder that natural hazards do not respect borders; their impacts are magnified by poverty, conflict, and policy choices. The international community faces a familiar test: whether to respond with resources that rebuild not just walls but systems, or whether to provide temporary fixes that leave vulnerabilities intact.
As you read this, ask yourself: when a place is broken by policy as much as by disaster, who bears the responsibility to repair it? What role should distant governments, aid groups, and private donors play in helping communities reimagine safer futures?
In Mazar-i-Sharif, among the shards of tile and the candles in courtyards, people are already answering in the old ways — neighbours moving in to share food, a mosque opening its doors, a teenager ferrying water to an injured neighbour. Those small acts — human, immediate, stubbornly kind — will be the first scaffolding of recovery.
The earth will move again. The question is whether the next time, fewer families will pay with their homes and lives. If we mean to learn, the work starts now, not in the news cycle, but in the training, the rebuilding, and the policy choices that follow.
