- The first reports show 30 dead in a single village: Ministry of Health.
- The number of victims and injuries is high, says Spox of the Ministry.
- The figures will probably increase as reports from remote areas arrive.
Kabul: Around 622 people died and more than 1,500 injured in an earthquake that hit East Afghanistan, authorities said Monday, while helicopters transported the wounded to the safety of the rubble hairstyles in the search for survivors.
The disaster will further stretch the resources of the nation of southern Asia already dealing with humanitarian crises, from a strong fall in aid to a great rejection of its citizens of neighboring countries.
The earthquake of magnitude 6 injured more than 1,500, the Afghan Interior Ministry led by the Taliban said in a statement that it put the death toll in 622.
Previous state broadcaster Radio Televisión Afghanistan (RTA) Put the toll at approximately 500.
In Kabul, the capital, the health authorities said rescuers were running to reach remote villages that splashed an area with a long history of earthquakes and floods.
“The figures of a few clinics show more than 400 wounds and dozens of deaths,” said Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman in a statement warned about higher casualties.
Reuters Television images showed helicopters transmitting to those affected, while residents helped soldiers and doctors take the wounded to ambulances.
Three villages were razed in the province of Kunar, with substantial damage in many others, said the Ministry of Health.
The reports showed 250 dead and 500 injured, said Najibullah Hanif, head of provincial information of Kunar, adding that the account could change.
The first reports showed 30 dead in a single village, with hundreds of wounded to the hospital, authorities said.
The rescuers were struggling to find survivors in the area that borders the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan, where mud and stone houses were level by the midnight earthquake hit at a depth of 10 kilometers.
“Until now, no foreign government has communicated to provide support for rescue or aid work,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Afghanistan is prone to mortal earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where Indian and Eurastic tectonic plates are found.
A series of earthquakes in their west killed more than 1,000 people last year, which underlines the vulnerability of one of the poorest countries in the world for natural disasters.
