Rescuers desperately searched Tuesday for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened by an earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 900 people.
The 6.0-magnitude earthquake, followed by at least five aftershocks, hit remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan around midnight Sunday.
The head of the Kunar Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said that "operations continued throughout the night". He said there were "still injured people left in the distant villages" in need of evacuation to hospitals.
Villagers joined the rescue efforts, using their bare hands to clear debris of simple mud and stone homes built into steep valleys.
Obaidullah Stoman, 26, who travelled to the village of Wadir to search for a friend, was overwhelmed by the level of destruction.
"I'm searching here, but I didn't see him. It was very difficult for me to see the conditions here," he said. "There is only rubble left."
The dead, including children, were wrapped in white shrouds by villagers who prayed over their bodies before burying them.
Emergency assistance
Some of the hardest-hit villages remain inaccessible due to blocked roads, the UN migration agency said.
The earthquake epicentre was about 27 kilometres (17 miles) from Jalalabad, according to the USGS, which said it struck at a shallow eight kilometres below the Earth's surface.
After decades of conflict, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, facing a protracted humanitarian crisis and the influx of millions of Afghans forced back to the country by neighbours Pakistan and Iran in recent years.
Since the US withdrawal in 2021, foreign aid to the country has been slashed, undermining the impoverished nation's already hamstrung ability to respond to disasters.
The United States was the largest aid donor until early 2025, when all but a sliver of funds were cancelled after President Donald Trump took office.
In June, the United Nations said it was drastically scaling back its global humanitarian aid plans due to the "deepest funding cuts ever".
On Monday, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement it was working with authorities to "swiftly assess needs, provide emergency assistance and stand ready to mobilise additional support", and announced an initial $5 million.
Fear and tension
Interim government authorities reported on Monday at least 900 dead and 3,000 injured in earthquake-hit Kunar, Nangarhar and Laghman provinces.
Relatively shallow quakes can cause more damage, especially since the majority of Afghans live in low-rise, mud-brick homes vulnerable to collapse.
Many living in quake-hit villages were among the more than four million Afghans who have returned to the country from Iran and Pakistan in recent years.
"There is a lot of fear and tension... Children and women were screaming. We had never experienced anything like this in our lives," Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad, a member of the agricultural department in Nurgal, said on Monday.
Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasia and India tectonic plates.
In October 2023, western Herat province was devastated by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed more than 63,000 homes.
A 5.9-magnitude quake struck the eastern province of Paktika in June 2022, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.
