Afghanistan’s Taliban administration made an appeal for help on Monday after one of the country’s worst earthquakes killed more than 800 people and injured at least 2,800.
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Rescuers were struggling to reach remote areas due to rough mountainous terrain and inclement weather.
The disaster will further stretch the resources of the war-torn nation’s Taliban government, 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, spokesman for the health ministry in Kabul, called for international aid to tackle the devastation wrought by the magnitude 6 earthquake that struck at around midnight local time on Sunday, at a depth of 10km (6 miles).
“We need it because here lots of people lost their lives and houses,” he told Reuters.
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“So far, no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work,” a spokesman at Afghanistan’s foreign office said on Monday.