欧美文化:Feature: Rescuing with hope 30 hours after deadly quakes in Afghanistan

ZANDA JAN, Afghanistan, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Struggling on a long ride from Afghanistan's capital Kabul, trucks loaded with food and medicine aid, ambulances and excavators were heading toward the western Herat province, the epicenter of several deadly earthquakes leading to more than 2,000 deaths as of Sunday night.

The road from Kabul to Herat has been destroyed by bombs due to years of war, making the journey much more wearing for drivers, who were still chasing time to take quake-relief materials to destinations. Vehicles with logos of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, the World Health Organization and other organizations could be easily seen along the way.

Two earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.2 jolted Afghanistan on Saturday, followed by several aftershocks. The first tremor occurred at around 11:10 a.m. local time.

National and provincial authorities of Afghanistan have dispatched rescue teams to provide assistance to the affected people.

"When the tremor happened, I heard a loud boom, and houses in our village collapsed one after another. Luckily, my family was outside and I took shelter in time, only sustained wounds in the leg," said Husseini, a villager who lives on the outskirts of the provincial capital Herat City.

On the street outside a hospital in the city of Herat, Husseini was receiving fluid. Blood was seeping out of bandages on the leg, but medical staff were too busy to help him, as his condition was not as serious as other patients.

As the number of casualties continued to rise, resources of hospitals in Herat were running out, and non-serious patients like Husseini were being treated at makeshift facilities on the streets.

More than 30 hours after the earthquake, most residents in the city of Herat calmed down and returned to normal life, but villagers living around the city and people in other parts of the province were still waiting for rescue or racing against time to participate in the rescue.

In the hardest-hit Zanda Jan district of Herat province, debris was spotted everywhere, women and children gathered on the ground to avoid possible aftershocks, and due to limited rescue equipment, local residents and rescue workers dug into the ground with their hands to find survivors or bodies.

A total of 13 villages were "utterly destroyed" in the district, spokesman for the national disaster authority Mullah Janan Shaeq said Sunday.

Local farmer Khalid said, "My children are still in the rubble. I will never give up."

"We can hear cries for help from time to time, and it is very likely that we can successfully rescue survivors," said Shafiullah Ahmed, a rescue worker from Herat City.

As night fell, villagers turned on emergency lights and continued their rescue efforts. Meanwhile, life-saving supplies were arriving, with many children's teary eyes agaze.