In Kabul, shops and markets stayed open and some residents seemed relieved that civilians were not being targeted.
Qasim, a 35-year-old tailor who lives near Kabul's airport, is not so fortunate.
"I want to move to a safer place ... but I don't have the money," he said.
People are not able to flee their homes even during air strikes, because of night curfews.
With his wife and seven children, Qasim prays for safety while their walls tremble and the door shakes.
"My younger ones scream and cry, my wife prays aloud all night ... My heart seems to pound inside my head," he said.
Qasin said he struggled all day to earn a piece of bread.
Jan Mohammed, 45, drives a donkey cart filled with tomatoes.
"I can't go anywhere. All I have is what I grow," he said.
"What if a bomb falls on our house? We will be killed. My children, everybody hid in the basement last night. Where are the poor people of Afghanistan supposed to go?"
Thousands like him huddle in underground shelters as the bombs fall.
In the crowded basements of apartment blocks, families take turns to fetch stockpiled water and basic food.
Mohammed Jalil, a waiter, looks after an extended family including his sister-in-law whose husband was killed after the Soviet invasion of 1979.
"Now we are afraid we will make another sacrifice, this time by American rockets," he said.
Some are too frightened to stay in Kabul.
"I don't understand why the people of Afghanistan are such unlucky people," said Mirza Mohammed, leaving town with his four children for Logar province in the central part of Afghanistan. "I haven't seen Osama bin Laden in my life."
Shaken residents sought to make sense of the attacks. One told Reuters: "Only God knows what has happened. I am leaving. I will sleep under the sky rather than stay in the city for another night."
An elderly disabled man at a Kabul bus station said he was frightened.
"We are leaving because it is no longer safe here - thanks to America," he said. The people were bracing for yet another siege of war.
"Both sides are strong. America is not afraid and Osama is not afraid," said Fida Mohammed, a bus driver who lived near the airport. He has moved to his brother's house at the other end of the city.
"This fighting may be long. "American people are eating chicken, and all we want is a piece of bread."
For those still seeking an escape route, unmarked landmines remain a deadly risk. The highest concentrations are around Kandahar in the south and Herat in the north-west.
The ruling Taleban, meanwhile, tries to stop families getting to Pakistan, and forcibly enlists men to fight. Of the nearly 27 million population, 42 per cent are aged 14 or under, and the Taleban has been arming young boys with guns.
In northern Afghanistan, fears are growing of an overwhelming humanitarian crisis as people prepare to flee their homes worried that a savage ground war is about to erupt between the Taleban and the Northern Alliance.
Already, millions of Afghans depend on international aid to survive. Some are already eating eat wild berries and plants.
Oxfam and the British Red Cross estimate around 6 million people face starvation unless convoys are substantially increased before the Afghan winter.
The aid agencies warn food and medicine supplies will run out within a month despite a partial resumption of cross-border deliveries halted by the air strikes.
The closure of all borders has heightened the need for a permanent humanitarian route to be opened into Afghanistan.
The UN has appealed to have the borders relaxed in line with international law, and Oxfam is meanwhile recommending that the people of Afghanistan stay put.
If this military action was over quickly, there was a good chance before winter to do something for them where they were now, Oxfam said.
Military cargo planes have dropped thousands of packages of prepared food, part of a $320 million humanitarian push announced by President Bush, but critics have labelled it a propaganda exercise.
They also claim the rations were dropped over a vast area of landmines in south-west Afghanistan.
