*

Afghanistan airdrops commandos for earthquake rescue

efforts

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WFP warns food aid will run out in four weeks without

funding

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Entire households wiped out, survivors face worsening

conditions

(Recasts with comments from UN World Food Programme, details)

By Mohammad Yunus Yawar, Sayed Hassib and Charlotte

Greenfield

KABUL/MAZAR DARA, Afghanistan, Sept 3 (Reuters) -

Afghanistan airdropped commandos on Wednesday to pull

survivors from the rubble in areas ravaged by earthquakes that

have killed more than 1,400 this week, as a U.N. agency warned

that food aid for victims would run out soon without urgent

funding.

Dozens of commando forces were being airdropped at sites

where helicopters cannot land, to help carry the injured to

safer ground, in what aid groups said was a race against time to

rescue those still stuck under rubble.

Time was also running out for those who survived

the two devastating quakes

in the remote eastern region of the impoverished country,

the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Wednesday.

John Aylieff, the head of WFP in Afghanistan, told

Reuters that the agency only has enough funding and stocks for

the next four weeks.

"Four weeks is just not enough even to meet the basic,

essential needs of the population struck by the earthquake, let

alone put the victims on a path back to rebuilding their lives,"

Aylieff said.

WFP funding for Afghanistan this year is just under $300

million, according to U.N. financial data, down from $1.7

billion in 2022, the first full year the country was

ruled by the Taliban.

Resources for rescue and relief work are tight in the nation

of 42 million people hit by war, poverty and shrinking aid. It

has received limited global help after the disaster.

The first earthquake of magnitude 6, one of

Afghanistan's deadliest in recent years, unleashed widespread

damage and destruction when it struck the provinces of Kunar and

Nangarhar around midnight on Sunday at a shallow depth of 10 km

(6 miles).

A second quake of magnitude 5.5 on Tuesday evening caused

panic and interrupted rescue efforts as it sent rocks sliding

down mountains and cut off roads to villages in remote areas.

The toll stands at 1,457 deaths, 3,394 injuries and more

than 6,700 destroyed homes, the Taliban administration said. The

U.N. has said the toll could rise, with people still trapped

under rubble.

Authorities have set up a camp to coordinate supplies and

emergency aid, while two centres were overseeing transfer of the

injured, burial of the dead and the rescue of survivors,

Ehsanullah Ehsan, the head of disaster management in Kunar, said

in a text message.

"What we really need is air support, helicopters.

Tragically WFP had a helicopter...until a few months ago when

funding cuts put an end to that," Aylieff said.

Afghanistan has been badly hit by U.S. President Donald

Trump's funding cuts to foreign aid, while donor frustration

over the Taliban's restrictive policies towards women and curbs

on aid workers have worsened its isolation.

ENTIRE HOUSEHOLDS WIPED OUT

In some villages in Kunar province, entire households were

wiped out. Survivors sifted through rubble looking for families,

carried bodies on woven stretchers and dug graves with pickaxes.

In Lulam village, one of the hardest-hit, Darbar, a

63-year-old woman who goes by one name, said she and her family

had been waiting for aid for three days since the earthquake

destroyed their house.

"No one even hears our voices," she said, perched on a

traditional wood-and-rope bed, adding that she had been injured

on the chest. "Now we are just sitting with hope in God. We have

no house, nothing to eat."

On the nearby mountain road, trucks carrying sacks of

flour or men with shovels could be seen on their way to villages

even worse hit.

Ruhila Mateen from Aseel, a humanitarian tech platform

that has teams on the ground, said conditions were worsening by

the hour for survivors, with women and children especially

vulnerable.

Flimsy or poorly-built homes made of dry masonry, stone and

timber gave little protection from the quakes, in ground left

unstable by days of heavy rain, said the U.N. Office for the

Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The agency, which is pulling together the global disaster

effort, called for emergency shelter, food assistance and

sanitation facilities, along with drinking water, critical

medical supplies and other items.

An official of international group Doctors without Borders

(MSF), which distributed trauma kits at two hospitals in the

affected areas, also called for more humanitarian assistance.

Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in

the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian

tectonic plates meet.