Many homes have been destroyed and their residents are still under the rubble
More than 1,000 people were killed in an earthquake in Afghanistan
The devastation covered several areas.
From the source
Rescue workers arrive at the earthquake site in a photo released by the Afghan News Agency.
AFP
during the evacuation of the victims.
AFP
picture
The death toll from the 5.9-magnitude earthquake that struck southeastern Afghanistan on Tuesday night has exceeded 1,000.
"The death toll has reached 1,000 dead and 1,500 wounded, and this number may rise as many families are missing," Muhammad Amin Hudhaifa, director of the Information and Culture Department in Paktika, one of the worst-affected areas, told Reuters.
The injured were taken to Kabul and Gardez.
Officially, disaster management officials still put the number of injured at 600.
"The number of earthquake victims so far in the states of Paktika and Khost is 900 dead and 500 injured," government spokesman Muhammad Naeem wrote in a tweet earlier.
"Many houses have been destroyed and their residents are still under the rubble," deputy Afghan government spokesman Bilal Karimi told AFP.
"We call on relief agencies to provide immediate assistance to earthquake victims to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe," he wrote in a tweet.
The 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck at a depth of 10 kilometers around 1.30 a.m. near the border with Pakistan, according to the US Seismological Institute.
A second earthquake of magnitude 4.5 struck the same place at about the same time, according to the same source.
According to Yaqoub Manzoor, a tribal chief from Paktika, many of the wounded were from the Jayan district of the state and were taken to hospital in ambulances and helicopters.
Kabul calls on relief agencies to provide immediate assistance to earthquake victims to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.
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