Desperate Afghans clawed through rubble in the dead of the night in search of missing loved ones after a strong earthquake killed some 800 people and injured more than 2500 in eastern Afghanistan, according to figures provided by the Taliban government.
The disaster will further stretch the resources of the 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 six and eight kilometres deep hit just before midnight local time on Sunday.
It hit towns in the province of Kunar, near the city of Jalalabad in neighbouring Nangarhar province, destroying numerous villages and causing extensive damage.
Footage showed rescuers taking injured people on stretchers from collapsed buildings and into helicopters as people frantically dug through rubble with their hands.
A Taliban government spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said at a press conference the death toll had risen to 800 with 2500 injured. He said most of the casualties were in Kunar province.
Sharafat Zaman, the spokesperson for the health ministry in Kabul, called for international aid to tackle the devastation from the quake.
"We need it because here lots of people lost their lives and houses," he told Reuters.
Military rescue teams fanned out across the region, the defence ministry said in a statement, with 40 flights carrying away 420 wounded and dead.
Three villages were razed in the province of Kunar, with substantial damage in many others, the health ministry said.
One resident in Nurgal district, one of the worst-affected areas in Kunar, said nearly the entire village was destroyed.
"Children are under the rubble. The elderly are under the rubble. Young people are under the rubble," said the villager, who did not give his name.
"We need help here," he pleaded. "We need people to come here and join us. Let us pull out the people who are buried. There is no one who can come and remove dead bodies from under the rubble."
One survivor described seeing homes collapse before his eyes and people screaming for help.
Sadiqullah, who lives in the Maza Dara area of Nurgal, said he was woken by a deep boom that sounded like a big storm approaching.
He ran to where his children were sleeping and rescued three of them. He was about to return to grab the rest of his family when the room fell on top of him.
"I was half-buried and unable to get out," he told The Associated Press by phone from Nangarhar Hospital.
"My wife and two sons are dead and my father is injured and in hospital with me. We were trapped for three to four hours until people from other areas arrived and pulled me out."
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 quake.
In a post on social media platform X, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said its mission in Afghanistan was preparing to help those in areas devastated by the quake.
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Afghanistan on October 7, 2023, followed by strong aftershocks. The Taliban government estimated at least 4000 people perished.
The UN gave a far lower death toll of about 1500. It was the deadliest natural disaster to strike Afghanistan in recent memory.
With AP