When stones fell from the sky: The night an Afghan village was destroyed

As you entered their small village, three men sat on a traditional woven bed, &nbsp, a few meters away from the piles of stones that were once the first homes.

Mehboob, Hayat’s cousin, was one of them.

My 13-year-old son Nasib Ullah was sleeping next to me when the earthquake occurred. I awoke, got out of bed, and began looking for the torch. The room suddenly shifted from the falling rocks. The 36-year-old explained that when I attempted to reach my son, the wall and floor slid down and he was unable to catch him.

It was worse than the judgment’s day, the author claimed.

You couldn’t see anything, and we couldn’t see each other because houses collapsed and boulders from a mountain came crumbling down.

He explained that everyone was hurt. Some people had broken legs and ribs.

We traveled to the farmland below in the dark, where it was safer from the boulders, with our still-born children.

He said he had more than 250 tremors that night, aftershocks that had lasted for weeks after the earthquake, and that they had left behind.

He made an effort to find his loved ones when the sun set. He continued, “But my body didn’t want to work.”

The rest of my son’s body had vanished under the rubble, but I could see his foot.

Aisha, his 10-year-old daughter, was also killed.

He claimed that this was his life’s worst experience.

The bodies were recovered by villagers and volunteers in two days.

Rahmat Gul, Hayat’s brother, immediately ran to Parwan province, about 300 kilometers away, to find his brother’s message telling him that the entire village was gone.

The surviving villagers asked him to blanket Mehboob’s dead son when he finally arrived in Aurak Dandila.

As Mehboob sat next to him and gazed over the farmland in the valley below, Rahmat Gul explained, “Mehboob asked me to show him his son’s face, but I was unable to do it.”

Hayat began pacing as she stood up near her.

He said, “God has taken my sons from me, and I now feel like I have also left this world.”

A small cornfield in Aurak Dandila has turned into a graveyard. Hayat said, “Here is where we buried our loved ones.” Stones are used to mark the graves.

He recalls how he had urged Abdul Haq to remain in the village. He lost his life the following day because everything was gone.

Hayat now declares, “There is nothing left to live for here.”

How do I keep living here? He inquired, pointing to the remains of what was once his home.

How can anyone live in this village when the stones are coming from above?

Source: Aljazeera