At least 1,000 people have been killed and more than a dozen injured in an earthquake in Afghanistan

KABUL, June 22 (Reuters) – The death toll from Wednesday’s earthquake in Afghanistan has touched 1,000, with more than 600 injured and disaster management officials expected to be augmented by drops of information from remote mountain villages.

Houses collapsed to the ground and bodies in blankets lay on the ground 6.1 magnitude earthquakeThe photos were shown in the Afghan media.

Photographs show an unknown number of people trapped under the rubble and in the countryside. Health and aid workers said rescue efforts were hampered by rain, landslides and difficult conditions in mountainous areas where many villages were inaccessible.

“Many more are buried under the ground. Rescue teams from the Islamic Emirates are trying to evacuate the dead and wounded with the help of local people,” said a health worker at one of Bhaktika’s main hospitals. He did not want to be named because he did not have the authority to speak to the media.

A rescue operation will prove a major test for the hardline Islamic Taliban officials who seized the country last August after two decades of war and were cut off from international aid due to sanctions. The Taliban-led Ministry of Defense is carrying out rescue operations.

The United Nations has said it will establish medical health committees and provide medical supplies, but in Afghanistan it lacks search and rescue capabilities.

Interior Ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi said the death toll was likely to rise as “some villages are in remote areas in the mountains, so it will take some time to gather details”.

Terrible earthquake in 20 years

Wednesday’s quake was the worst in Afghanistan since 2002. The US Geological Survey (USGS) said it struck about 44 km (27 miles) off the southeast coast of Pakistan.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said on Twitter that about 119 million people had felt the quake in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties in Pakistan.

The EMSC put the quake’s magnitude at 6.1, but the USGC put it at 5.9.

Disaster experts and humanitarian workers said the quake-hit poor hilly areas were particularly vulnerable, adding to the widespread devastation caused by landslides and poorly constructed houses.

“We were all sleeping at home … the room fell on us,” Gul Faraz said as he and his wife and children were being treated for injuries at a hospital in the eastern province of Baghdad. Some family members have been killed, he said.

“All the houses in our area were destroyed, not one, but the whole area.”

Most of the confirmed deaths were in Bhaktika, where 255 people were killed and more than 200 were injured, Ayubi said. In the Coast Province, 25 people died and 90 were taken to hospital.

The leader of the ruling Taliban party, Haibatullah Akundzadah, expressed his condolences in a statement.

Adding challenge to Afghan authorities is the recent flooding in several regions, which is blocking the extension of the highway.

Afghanistan is also mired in a severe economic crisis. In response to last year’s Taliban takeover, several countries imposed sanctions on Afghanistan’s banking sector and cut billions of dollars in development aid.

However, humanitarian aid from international organizations such as the UN continued

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the Taliban welcomed international aid. Several countries, including neighboring Pakistan and Iran, said they were sending humanitarian aid, including food and medicine.

The UN said the United Nations was fully mobilized, assessed the needs and provided initial support. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

“We hope the international community will help the hundreds of families affected by this recent disaster. Now is the time for unity,” he said in a statement.

Large parts of South Asia are seismically active because the tectonic plate known as the Indian plate pushes north into the Eurasian plate. read more

In 2015, an earthquake shook northeastern Afghanistan, killing several hundred people in Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan.

Report by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul and Zibran Ahmed in Peshawar; Additional report by Kabul Newsroom, Shubham Galia in Bangalore, Alastair Paul in Delhi and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Written by Charlotte Greenfield and Zibran Peshimam; Editing by Lisa Schumacher and Rosalpa O’Brien

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