Desperate searches are continuing as rescuers try to find those trapped and injured following an earthquake in Afghanistan that has killed at least 800 people and injured some 2,800 others.
The Taliban has called for international aid following the magnitude-6.0 earthquake that struck near the city of Jalalabad just before midnight, local time, on Sunday.
At least 812 people have been killed in the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
Local authorities have warned that number is likely to rise once rescuers reach more isolated areas.
The disaster will further stretch the resources of the war-torn nation's Taliban administration, which was already grappling with crises ranging from a sharp drop in foreign aid to deportations of hundreds of thousands of Afghans by neighbouring countries.
Sharafat Zaman, spokesperson for the health ministry in Kabul, called for international help to aid recovery efforts.
"We need it because here lots of people lost their lives and houses," he told Reuters.
Some villagers sat weeping amid the piled ruins of their homes while others began laboriously clearing the debris by hand, or carried out the injured on makeshift stretchers.
"This is Mazar Dara in Nurgal district. The entire village has been destroyed," one victim told reporters.
"Children and elders are trapped under the rubble. We need urgent help."
Another survivor said they "need ambulances, we need doctors, we need everything to rescue the injured and recover the dead."
Ziaul Haq Mohammadi, a student at Al-Falah University in the eastern city of Jalalabad, was studying in his room at home when the quake struck.
He said he tried to stand up but was knocked over by the power of the tremor.
"We spent the whole night in fear and anxiety because at any moment another earthquake could happen," Mr Mohammadi said.
Relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in low-rise, mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.
India and China offer help
Rescuers are struggling to reach many mountainous areas cut off from mobile networks along the border with Pakistan, where heavy rains have also exacerbated access issues.
With many roads impassable because of landslides, helicopters are being used to ferry the dead and injured out of the earthquake zone.
Roads remained blocked nearly 20 hours after the earthquake, despite resident efforts to clear the way.
"The search operation is still going on. Many people are stuck under the rubble of their roofs," the disaster management head in eastern Kunar province, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told AFP, warning the death toll could rise.
[map]After the Taliban initially said that no countries had offered to help with the recovery, both India and China said they were willing to help.
A spokesperson for China's foreign ministry said it was ready to provide disaster relief assistance "according to Afghanistan's needs and within its capacity".
Meanwhile, India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the country had delivered 1,000 family tents to Kabul and was moving 15 tonnes of food material to Kunar, with more relief material to be sent from India starting on Tuesday.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said its mission in Afghanistan was preparing to help those in areas devastated by the quake.
In a post shared by the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV said he was "deeply saddened by the significant loss of life caused by the earthquake in the area of eastern Afghanistan".
Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.
Since 1900, there have been 12 earthquakes with magnitudes greater than seven in north-east Afghanistan, according to Brian Baptie, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey.
"This scale of the seismic activity, the potential for multi-hazard events and the construction of structures in the region can combine to create significant loss of life in such events," he said.
Since the return of the Taliban in 2021, foreign aid to Afghanistan has been slashed, undermining the impoverished nation's already hamstrung ability to respond to disasters.
Around 85 per cent of the Afghan population lives on less than one dollar a day, according to the UN Development Programme.
ABC/wires
