Search for survivors ongoing after Afghan earthquake kills 800

Rescuers desperately search for survivors in the rubble of homes flattened by an earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 800 people.

The 6.0-magnitude earthquake, followed by at least five aftershocks, hit remote areas in mountainous provinces near the border with Pakistan around midnight Sunday.

The head of the Kunar Provincial Disaster Management Authority, Ehsanullah Ehsan, tells AFP that “operations continued throughout the night.”

He adds that there are “still injured people left in the distant villages” in need of evacuation to hospitals.

Villagers joined the rescue efforts, using their bare hands to clear debris of simple mud and stone homes built into steep valleys. The dead, some of them children, were wrapped in white shrouds by villagers who prayed over their bodies before burying them.

Some of the hardest-hit villages remain inaccessible due to blocked roads, the UN migration agency says.