More than 800 people have been killed and 2,800 injured in an earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan, the country's state-run broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) reported.
The magnitude-six quake killed at least 812 people in the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar, the Taliban-run Afghan interior ministry said, with numerous houses destroyed.
Authorities in Kabul said they were still confirming the official toll figure as they worked to reach remote areas.
"All our... teams have been mobilised to accelerate assistance, so that comprehensive and full support can be provided," ministry spokesperson Abdul Maten Qanee told Reuters, citing efforts in areas from security to food and health.
The earthquake was Afghanistan's deadliest since June 2022, when tremors of magnitude 6.1 killed at least 1,000 people.
The quake at 11.47pm local time was centred 17 miles east-northeast of the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, the US Geological Survey said.
It was just five miles deep. Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage.
Early reports showed 30 dead in a single village, the health ministry said, but added that accurate casualty figures had yet to be gathered in an area of scattered hamlets with a long history of earthquakes and flooding.
"The number of casualties and injuries is high, but since the area is difficult to access, our teams are still on site," health ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman said in a statement.
He said many areas had not been able to report casualties figures and that "the numbers were expected to change" as death and injuries are reported.
Hundreds of injured were taken to hospital, said Najibullah Hanif, the provincial information head, with figures likely to rise as reports arrived from remote areas with few roads.
Rescuers were working in several districts of the mountainous province where the midnight quake hit at a depth of ten kilometres, to level homes of mud and stone on the border with Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, officials said.
"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.
