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Business Insider

Thousands of people in Afghanistan fled to the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Monday in a last-ditch effort to flee the country after the Taliban overtook the region at a record pace.
Previous photos and videos showed large numbers of Afghan people blocking off runways and latching onto US Air Force planes attempting to take off – and some falling off mid-flight. At least seven people were reported to have died in the chaos.
But new satellite images from Maxar Technologies reveal the scale of the humanitarian crisis as people try to escape Afghanistan.

The satellite photos also give a glimpse of the chaos outside the airport as hundreds of vehicles reached a gridlock trying to approach the airfield.

Large crowds of people appear to have abandoned their vehicles entirely in a rush to board some of the final remaining planes leaving Kabul. Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said on Monday that all flights at Kabul's airport, both military and civilian, were grounded as US soldiers attempted to re-establish a security perimeter around the airport.


On Tuesday, military flights evacuating diplomats and civilians resumed and the number of civilians at the airport had thinned out, a Western security official at the facility told Reuters.
The Pentagon announced on Monday that the military was ending 1,000 more troops to Kabul for a soon-to-be total of 7,000 soldiers in Afghanistan's capital.
Read Business Insider’s story.


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Afghanistan

Kabul airport satellite images show chaos and crowds as thousands try to flee Afghanistan

Crowds of Afghans surrounding a plane at Kabul’s airport on Monday. Photo: 2021 Maxar Technologies

epa09416596 A handout satellite image made available by Maxar Technologies shows crowds on the tarmac of Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, 16 August 2021. Several people were reportedly killed at Kabul airport on 16 August as Afghans were attempting to hang on a moving US military plane leaving the airport. Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar earlier in the day declared victory and an end to the decades-long war in Afghanistan, a day after the insurgents entered Kabul to take control of the country. Baradar, who heads the Taliban political office in Qatar, released a short video message after President Ashraf Ghani fled and conceded that the insurgents had won the 20-year war. EPA-EFE/MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES HANDOUT -- MANDATORY CREDIT: SATELLITE IMAGE 2021 MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES -- the watermark may not be removed/cropped -- HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

epa09416595 A handout satellite image made available by Maxar Technologies shows a traffic jam outside Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, 16 August 2021. Several people were reportedly killed at Kabul airport on 16 August as Afghans were attempting to hang on a moving US military plane leaving the airport. Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar earlier in the day declared victory and an end to the decades-long war in Afghanistan, a day after the insurgents entered Kabul to take control of the country. Baradar, who heads the Taliban political office in Qatar, released a short video message after President Ashraf Ghani fled and conceded that the insurgents had won the 20-year war. EPA-EFE/MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES HANDOUT -- MANDATORY CREDIT: SATELLITE IMAGE 2021 MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES -- the watermark may not be removed/cropped -- HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

Joe Biden, in speech on Afghanistan’s rapid fall, defends his decision on US exit

US President Joe Biden speaks about the situation in Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House on Monday. Photo: AP

Afghan people sit as they wait to leave the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city's airport trying to flee the group's feared hardline brand of Islamist rule. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)

‘War is over’: key Afghanistan dates since 2001

A US military map of Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, a bombing campaign against the Taliban, in late 2001. File photo: Reuters

FILE PHOTO: Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai holds up his ink-stained finger after voting in the presidential election in Kabul June 14, 2014. Afghans headed back to the polls on Saturday for a second round of voting to elect a successor to President Hamid Karzai in a decisive test of Afghanistan's ambitions to transfer power democratically for the first time in its tumultuous history. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Anti-Taliban Afghan fighters watch several explosions from U.S. bombings in the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan December 16, 2001. REUTERS/Erik de Castro/File Photo

In this image released by the White House and digitally altered by the source to diffuse the paper in front of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, Sunday, May 1, 2011, in Washington. (Pete Souza/The White House via AP)

FILE PHOTO: Sgt. William Olas Bee, a U.S. Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan May 18, 2008. The Marine was not injured. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo

Afghanistan: US lowers flag at Kabul embassy as Taliban seize power

Taliban fighters patrol the streets of Kabul on August 16, 2021. Photo: AFP

U.S. President Joe Biden is seen during a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris, their security team and senior officials to obtain updates on the draw down of civilian personnel in Afghanistan, evacuations of SIV applicants and other Afghan allies, and the ongoing security situation in Kabul, in this handout photo obtained from The White House Twitter account on August 16, 2021. Twitter @WhiteHouse/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY.

Women with their children try to get inside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan August 16, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace after the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Zabi Karimi)

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Chaotic scenes as diplomats, Afghans flee to airport
US and allies scramble to evacuate their citizens



Crowds converged on the airport on Monday seeking to escape, including some who clung to a US military transport plane as it took off.


War in Afghanistan

Afghanistan: All stories

War and conflict

Afghanistan after the US withdrawal

Kabul airport satellite images show chaos and crowds as thousands try to flee Afghanistan

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Chaotic scenes as diplomats, Afghans flee to airport US and allies scramble to evacuate their citizens

Chaotic scenes as diplomats, Afghans flee to airport

US and allies scramble to evacuate their citizens