The death toll in Afghanistan’s earthquake has risen to 1,124, the Afghan Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian group working in the region, said on Tuesday.
At least 3,251 people have been injured and more than 8,000 houses have been destroyed in the disaster, the group said..
“Figures from just a few clinics show over 400 injured and dozens of fatalities,” ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman said in a statement that warned of higher casualties.
Three villages were razed in the province of Kunar, with substantial damage in many others, the health ministry said.
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 midnight quake hit at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).
“So far, no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work,” a foreign office spokesperson said.
Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.
A series of earthquakes in its west killed more than 1,000 people last year, underscoring the vulnerability of one of the world’s poorest countries to natural disasters.
