October 10 at 5:41 p.m., a magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit Afghanistan in the Zenda Jan district, causing damage and taking over 2,000 lives across the Herat District. According to United Nations officials, over 90% of the casualties of the earthquake effect women and children.

“There would have been no ‘gender dimension’ to the death toll if the quake had happened at night,” said the Afghanistan representative for the United Nations Population Fund, Jaime Nadal.

Due to the fact that the earthquake hit while many of the men were at work, mostly in the fields, they were left unaffected by the initial tremor. On the other hand, many of the women and children were at home taking care of chores. 

“When the first earthquake hit, people thought it was an explosion, and they ran into their homes,” said Siddig Ibrahim (chief of the UNICEF field office in Herat).

This was promptly followed by the collapse of many of the homes that the people ran into, leading to many of the women and children trapped, suffocating under the rubble. The aftermath of the earthquake and its aftershocks are quite dire. Many vital pieces of infrastructure are left nonexistent or dangerous to use. 

“The maternity hospital in Herat province has cracks that make the structure unsafe. The U.N. has provided tents so pregnant women have somewhere to stay and receive care,” Nadal said. 

In addition to the damage to the infrastructure, the gaps in the infrastructure before the earthquake are shown even more clearly as many children are left orphaned and without a system in place for adoption.