Even before the earthquake in Afghanistan on Saturday that reduced villages and hamlets across the western province of Herat to dust, doctors and healthcare workers at the Herat regional hospital were struggling to cope.
Malnutrition, poverty and a lack of medicines and equipment were already putting an unbearable strain on the hospital. Now, days after the deadly quakes that are believed to have claimed more than 3,000 lives, and as people in the villages still dig with their hands in the rubble to find their loved ones, the hospital cannot take any more patients.
