{"id":1150,"date":"2025-09-09T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/?p=1150"},"modified":"2025-09-12T19:16:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T19:16:55","slug":"the-us-stopped-showing-up-to-disasters-the-results-are-horrifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/09\/the-us-stopped-showing-up-to-disasters-the-results-are-horrifying\/","title":{"rendered":"The US stopped showing up to disasters. The results are horrifying."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tAn earthquake in Afghanistan killed over 2,200 people last Sunday, with some rural villages still unreachable by rescuers. | Wakil Kohsar\/AFP via Getty Images\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the time the earthquake struck, flattening mud-brick homes across Afghanistan\u2019s eastern mountains<\/a> last week, many nearby health clinics had already been shuttered for months.<\/p>\n

Mushtaq Khan, a senior adviser for the International Rescue Committee<\/a>, felt his building jolt from all the way in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday night. He woke the next morning to a horrifying death toll slowly trickling in. First, 200 lives lost; then 500; 800; 1,000; and finally, by Thursday, there were over 2,200 confirmed deaths<\/a>, with some rural villages still unreachable by rescuers.<\/p>\n

As his team searched for survivors, he wondered what could have happened if the gutting of the US Agency for International Development<\/a> hadn\u2019t forced four of their clinics in the country\u2019s hardest-hit province to close earlier this year, cutting off 60,000 rural Afghans from care. <\/p>\n

How many lives could be saved if the emergency aid came rushing in like it did before? If the roads had been built in time, or if the food assistance was at the ready like it used to be, they could have surely reached more people more quickly in the disaster\u2019s wake. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we are responding now would\u2019ve been way different,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of this year, the US cut almost $1.8 billion worth of aid to Afghanistan<\/a>. Because of those cuts alone, the country\u2019s GDP will likely shrink by a full 5 percent this year<\/a>, cutting off food, shelter, and medical care for millions of Afghans. In 2022, after a magnitude 6.1 quake hit southeastern Afghanistan the US gave $55 million for food, health, and sanitation supplies.<\/a> The next year, it gave $12 million in the wake of yet another earthquake<\/a>. But this time, the US offered nothing.<\/p>\n

Globally, we are at risk of unraveling decades of progress in making disasters less deadly<\/a>, driven by investments in infrastructure, early warning systems, and better coordination between the patchwork of actors and agencies that kicks into gear when crisis strikes. Foreign aid has always been a critical part of that puzzle in low-income countries like Afghanistan. A steady flow of foreign aid helps facilitate the kind of development \u2014 the roads and resources \u2014 needed to make emergency response truly effective when disaster strikes.  <\/p>\n

The US isn\u2019t alone in slashing aid. As a result of the worldwide retreat in funding lifesaving development programs<\/a>, every disaster is now deadlier than it needs to be \u2014 and every aid worker is left navigating an increasingly dysfunctional system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe resources are really, really scarce right now,\u201d Khan said. If the money was there like it used to be, he told Vox that he \u201cwould be on the ground working side by side with my team right now. We are really feeling the difference.\u201d <\/p>\n

How disaster relief works<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When an earthquake or a cyclone strikes a poor village, what normally happens first is that the country\u2019s government puts out a call for international relief. <\/p>\n

Then, a hodgepodge of NGOs, United Nations agencies, and foreign governments would spring into action. USAID would typically pledge a few million dollars to the government of the affected country or \u2014 as would be the case for an unfriendly ruler like the Taliban \u2014 to a United Nations agency or humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross working on the ground. <\/p>\n

Sometimes, the US would even lend out one of its highly specialized search and rescue task forces<\/a> to respond to a disaster overseas, as it did to Haiti, Turkey, Peru, the Bahamas, Nepal, and Japan after earthquakes, flooding, and hurricanes over the past decade. <\/p>\n

The coordination would kick in really quickly. Most humanitarian organizations didn\u2019t even wait for the contracts to be signed before flying their teams straight into the epicenter to work with local agencies and nonprofits on the ground. <\/p>\n

After decades of collaboration, most humanitarian organizations trusted that \u201cthe US government would pay its bills\u201d or reimburse them eventually for the costs incurred, said Jeremy Konyndyk, who ran USAID\u2019s disaster assistance branch under the Obama administration and now leads the advocacy group Refugees International<\/a>. By having those relationships at the ready, a response can kick in much faster when disaster strikes.  \u201cSometimes you need the relief to move faster than our grant processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

That trust didn\u2019t come overnight, nor did USAID\u2019s capacity for responding quickly to global disasters, he said. Over time, \u201cit evolved and it grew and iterated,\u201d he said. \u201cIt became this really amazing professional operational, deployable machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

What makes the most difference in the immediate aftermath of a disaster is not an injection of emergency donations. It\u2019s not as simple as crowdfunding a search and rescue team. Instead, long-term infrastructure projects \u2014 often fueled by foreign aid \u2014 are what really wax the wheels of disaster relief, ensuring that help can come as fast and efficiently as possible.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important that the protocols are already in place and the rescuers are already on call to respond effectively by the time disaster strikes. But, it\u2019s equally important that the clinics are open, the roads are paved, the water is clean, and the houses are strong enough to withstand some damage. <\/p>\n

Achieving those goals through global cooperation has been extremely important for low-income countries, where disasters are still far more deadly than in rich countries<\/a>, despite efforts to improve early warning systems worldwide. <\/p>\n

But, they have made progress, which helps explain why earthquakes, cyclones, and floods used to kill far more people a century ago than they do today<\/a>, despite there being way more people now, more data reporting, and more disasters tied to climate change than before<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The new math of who gets saved<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But now, with the death of USAID<\/a> and plenty of other countries taking sledgehammers to their own aid agencies<\/a>, everything about disaster relief has gotten a lot more sluggish. <\/p>\n

The Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, put out an appeal for aid<\/a> shortly after the earthquake struck at the end of August. So did the leader of a local rebel group in Sudan last week, after a devastating landslide killed over 1,000 people<\/a> in a region already ravaged by war and famine.<\/p>\n

While a few countries have stepped in to help in the aftermath of the earthquake \u2014 including the European Union, China, India, and the United Kingdom<\/a> \u2014 aid workers like Khan say the absence of the US is directly impacting their response<\/a>. \u201cIt’s just a complete mess,\u201d Konyndyk said. \u201cAs a functional matter, the US government is simply out of the business of disaster aid globally,\u201d and \u201cit\u2019s done huge damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those search and rescue task forces the US used to send? They\u2019re still technically on retainer, but in what Konyndyk called an \u201centirely insane\u201d twist, the Trump administration cancelled the emergency transport contracts that used to get them where they needed to go \u2014 meaning that it\u2019s now basically impossible to get them overseas, especially on a time crunch.<\/p>\n

It took four days to get those task forces to Texas after the floods this summer<\/a> \u2014 the same first responders that made it to Syria and Turkey after the 2023 earthquake in just <\/em>two <\/em>days.<\/a><\/p>\n

The USAID subagency that once handled global disaster logistics has been quietly subsumed into the much smaller office within the State Department<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not that it seems to be doing much anyway. After a magnitude 7.7 earthquake killed 3,800 people in Myanmar back in March, the US was mostly absent in the disaster response. The UN\u2019s human rights expert for Myanmar recently told the Associated Press<\/a> that a mixture of aid cuts and the notable absence of US logistical support has severely hampered the country\u2019s ability to recover. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Previous earthquakes had led to the deployment of a full US-led rescue team with dozens of rescuers, search dogs, and heavy machinery that could pull people out alive. This time, the US flew in a team of just three aid workers to assess the damage and then promptly fired them all via email mere days after their arrival as they slept in the rubble-strewn streets of the earthquake zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The situation in Afghanistan is even worse. After the Taliban\u2019s takeover, the US remained the country\u2019s largest source of aid<\/a> by far, sending billions to the poverty-stricken country<\/a> over the past four years.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s decision to slash the vast majority of aid spending cut the country off from urgent food aid<\/a>, forced the closure of about 400 humanitarian health clinics<\/a> \u2014 40 percent of the country\u2019s total<\/a> \u2014 and gave girls even fewer options to go to school<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou just name any crisis \u2014 we are seeing it over here,\u201d said Khan, who\u2019s especially worried about how damage to water and housing infrastructure could increase the prevalence of disease and make it impossible for families to weather the coming winter. It would be one thing if this were the only crisis on his plate, but the earthquake is only the latest in a series of crises, including a severe drought<\/a> that has left about one-third of the population facing acute food insecurity<\/a> and the millions of Afghans forced out of neighboring nations<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese are very resilient people,\u201d he said. \u201cThey just need backing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recipe for disaster\u2026or relief<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Saving more lives is about more than money for any individual disaster; it\u2019s about addressing a brewing logistical nightmare that\u2019s making the world less safe and far less prepared to respond to all different kinds of crises.<\/p>\n

Take Sudan. Western media didn\u2019t even report on the deadly landslide that occurred there<\/a> \u2014 which destroyed an entire village \u2014 until two days after the disaster hit. And, the ongoing civil war makes it extremely difficult to get humanitarian aid<\/a> inside the country anyway, particularly in the region most affected, where many have sought refuge from the violence precisely because the area is so remote.  <\/p>\n

But almost unthinkably, the destruction of USAID \u2014 which funded the bulk of humanitarian relief that did make it into the country<\/a> \u2014 has made things even worse. It ruptured longstanding relationships, unceremoniously firing some of the only people with the logistical expertise needed to navigate such tricky terrain. No matter what comes next, it won\u2019t be easy to build back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are facing a huge loss of capacity and trust,\u201d said Patricia McIlreavy, head of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy<\/a>, who has spent decades working in humanitarian aid, including in Sudan. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere may be others who fill those gaps. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a real unknown,\u201d she said. \u201cHow will it look? How will people get support? Will<\/em> they get support?\u201d <\/p>\n

In the meantime, she fears that all of the \u201ccuts in funding, but also cuts in capacity, and cuts in expertise and relationship-building\u201d could have dire consequences long after the dust settles. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople on the ground in Sudan, people on the ground in Afghanistan, don\u2019t have a vote on any of these changes,\u201d she said. \u201cAll they know is nothing is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, natural disasters don\u2019t see borders. There\u2019s something very human \u2014 apolitical, even \u2014 in the impulse to support one another in the wake of such tragedies. <\/p>\n

Afghanistan offered $100,000 to New Orleans<\/a> after Hurricane Katrina. Mexico sent dozens of firefighters to Los Angeles<\/a> when wildfires broke out earlier this year. Hundreds of Canadian workers descended on North Carolina<\/a> to help restore power after Hurricane Helene.  <\/p>\n

And with climate change accelerating the pace and intensity of natural disasters<\/a> around the world \u2014 but especially in places like Afghanistan and Sudan<\/a> \u2014 like it or not, we are all in this together. <\/p>\n

Granted, the US used to anchor a vast global emergency response infrastructure, and individual donations are absolutely no replacement for that<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But in Sudan \u2014 where local volunteer networks have managed to bring lifesaving<\/a> relief to places that many western donors gave up on years ago \u2014 anything is still better than nothing, especially if you choose to support for the long haul. The same is true in Afghanistan, where aid workers have trudged for hours in search of survivors to pull from the rubble<\/a>.   <\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have a belief that help will come, and when we erode that hope, I think we do something to who we are as people,\u201d McIlreavy said. \u201cHow are we advancing together if we can’t believe that we are somehow there for each other?\u201d<\/p>\n

Correction, September 12, 2:30 pm ET<\/strong>: This story misstated the department that USAID\u2019s disaster response was subsumed into. It is the State Department.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An earthquake in Afghanistan killed over 2,200 people last Sunday, with some rural villages still unreachable by rescuers. | Wakil Kohsar\/AFP via Getty Images By the time the earthquake struck, flattening mud-brick homes across Afghanistan\u2019s eastern mountains last week, many nearby health clinics had already been shuttered for months. Mushtaq Khan, a senior adviser for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1150"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1155,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions\/1155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}