Afghanistan earthquake kills 800 with more than 2,800 injured

KABUL: About 622 people were killed and more than 1,500 injured in an earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan, authorities said on Monday, as helicopters ferried the wounded to safety from rubble being combed in the hunt for survivors.

The disaster will further stretch the resources of the South Asian nation already grappling with humanitarian crises, from a sharp drop in aid to a huge pushback of its citizens from neighbouring countries.

The quake of magnitude 6 injured more than 1,500, the Taliban-run Afghan interior ministry said in a statement that put the death toll at 622. Earlier state-run broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) put the toll at about 500.

In Kabul, the capital, health authorities said rescuers were racing to reach remote hamlets dotting an area with a long history of earthquakes and floods.

“Figures from just a few clinics show over 400 injured and dozens of fatalities,” ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman said in a statement that warned of higher casualties.

Images from Reuters Television showed helicopters ferrying out the affected, while residents helped soldiers and medics carry the wounded to ambulances.

Three villages were razed in the province of Kunar, with substantial damage in many others, the health ministry said.

Reports showed 250 dead and 500 injured, said Najibullah Hanif, the provincial information head of Kunar, adding that the tally could change.

Early reports showed 30 dead in a single village, with hundreds of injured taken to hospital, authorities said.

Rescuers were scrambling to find survivors in the area bordering Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, where homes of mud and stone were levelled by the midnight quake hit at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).

“So far, no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work,” a foreign office spokesperson said.

Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.

A series of earthquakes in its west killed more than 1,000 people last year, underscoring the vulnerability of one of the world’s poorest countries to natural disasters.