Reuters
Afghan men dig graves for the people who died during a deadly magnitude-6 earthquake, at Sepero Village, Chawkay district, in Kunar province, Afghanistan. [Source: Reuters]
Nasrullah Khan’s voice breaks as he describes how with his own hands he buried three children in one grave and two young men in another after an earthquake struck the mountainous southeastern Afghan province of Kunar on Sunday.
Nasrullah, an office worker from Kunar City, travelled six hours into Dewagul Valley in Kunar after the quake to help rescue efforts.
In valleys lined with mud-brick homes, survivors carried bodies on woven stretchers. Nasrullah said he saw the bodies of children wrapped in patterned blankets and men digging graves with pickaxes.
Sunday’s magnitude 6 quake killed some 1,400 people and injured 3,124, with more than 5,400 houses destroyed, according to a Taliban spokesperson.
On Tuesday, a second large quake shook the same region, leading to fears of yet more destruction in a country crippled by poverty, war and shrinking aid.
Officials said three villages in Kunar were flattened, causing more than 600 deaths. The defence ministry said 40 flights had evacuated 420 victims as rescue teams moved from badly hit villages to more remote hamlets.
Gul Bibi, an 80-year-old, was weeping, holding a toddler in her arms, next to a destroyed house in the mountain village of Mazar Dara, one of the places worst hit in Kunar province.
The United Nations has warned the toll would rise as victims remained trapped under the rubble.
In Dara-e-Noor, in the province of Nangarhar, 23-year-old Ziarat Gul said his uncle’s house collapsed, killing a seven-year-old boy and two girls.
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