Earthquake: As houses toppled during the early hours of 1st September 2025, the rest of the world became a silent witness to the disaster that claimed about 800 lives and left over 2000 people injured.
The Complex Tectonics of the Hindu-Kush Mountain Range and Afghanistan
Amidst a situation so dire, the main question is not about the magnitude of the earthquake and the ways of grappling with it. It is, in fact, the geography of the location, particularly the Hindu Kush Mountain range, home to the country better known as Afghanistan.
Earthquakes are caused by the sudden movement of the tectonic plates that make up the Earth’s crust. The region of such distortion between the plates is known as a fault line.
Afghanistan is prone to such earthquakes mainly because it is situated on a fault line, specifically where the Indian and Eurasian plates meet (the exact location of the Hindu Kush Mountain range). The latest series of major earthquakes happened as a result of thrust faulting near the far-western end of the Hindu Kush Mountain range. Due to this geographic location, Afghanistan has experienced 200-plus earthquakes in the last year alone. Every earthquake differs in severity and impact.
With that being said, it is to be noted that shallow earthquakes cause more destruction and damage as compared to the ones that take place deeper within the earth. Over the past two decades, Afghanistan has suffered largely from the shallow ones. One of them was the 2023 Earthquake at Herat, a city in western Afghanistan, where a 6.3 magnitude earthquake brought an end to the lives of 1400 people.
The Fragile Infrastructure of Afghanistan and Frequent Earthquakes
Besides the geopolitical circumstances of Afghanistan as a nation, the main factor that is of concern when it comes to the lives of its citizens is the country’s fragile infrastructure. Decades of conflict, natural disasters, and poverty have severely damaged Afghanistan’s infrastructure, leaving many buildings ill-equipped to withstand earthquakes or shocks.
Additionally, when earthquakes strike, it is rural regions where the damage is most often at its peak since such communities have homes that are built of mud brick and other less robust construction materials. Also, due to the isolation of these villages, ensuring rapid support from humanitarian organisations and government bodies can be difficult. Often, these disasters damage crucial transport links, making it difficult to access emergency services immediately.Â
The vulnerability of Afghanistan in this regard is also due to frequent landslides that can flatten houses in mountain villages and block rivers, causing widespread flooding. When disasters like earthquakes hit, they can worsen existing crises where communities have already been tackling severe food insecurity, unemployment, economic collapse, floods and droughts, and restrictions on the freedoms of women and girls. When these already stretched households lose family members, homes, and livelihoods, it further diminishes their ability to recover and rebuild.
Afghanistan’s tragedy is not only written by the movement of tectonic plates but also by fragile infrastructure, poverty, and years of instability that magnify every tremor. Until resilience is built into homes, governance, and humanitarian response, each earthquake will remain more than a natural disaster — it will be a human catastrophe repeated in cycles of loss.
