Afghan earthquake death toll rises to 1,500

Al Jazeera :
The death toll has risen to 1,500 after a magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck Afghanistan’s Paktika Province early on Wednesday, with more than 2,000 others injured, Al Jazeera reported, citing Afghan officials.
Early reports said the powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan had killed at least 1,000 people and injured 1,500. The Afghan government has yet to confirm the new figures but interior ministry official Salahuddin Ayubi warned previously that casualties are likely to rise. The Taliban-run administration’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Thursday that a massive relief effort is underway inside and outside the quake-hit areas.
Meanwhile, doctors in Afghanistan have told the BBC that many children may have been killed in Wednesday’s earthquake.
More than 1,000 people died in the disaster, and heavy rain, threadbare resources and rugged terrain are hampering rescue workers.
Unknown numbers were buried in the rubble of ruined, often mud-built homes by the magnitude 6.1 earthquake.
One woman in hospital in Paktika province told reporters she had lost 19 family members.
“Seven in one room, five in another, four in another, then three in another, have all been killed in my family,” she said from her bed.
The Taliban authorities have called for more international aid. Communication networks are also badly hit.
“We can’t reach the area – networks are too weak,” a Taliban spokesman was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
The United Nations is among those scrambling to provide emergency shelter and food aid to remote areas in Paktika.
Survivors and rescuers have told the BBC of villages completely destroyed near the epicentre of the quake, of ruined roads and mobile phone towers – and of their fears that the death toll will rise further. Some 1,500 people were also injured, officials say.
Most of the casualties found so far have been in the Gayan and Barmal districts of Paktika. Locals report dozens of villages collapsed.
“There was a rumbling and my bed began to shake,” a survivor called Shabir told the BBC.
“The ceiling fell down. I was trapped, but I could see the sky. My shoulder was dislocated, my head was hurt but I got out. I am sure that seven or nine people from my family, who were in the same room as me, are dead.”
A mother of six who was badly injured in the earthquake told the BBC many in her village had been killed, including seven of her own family members.
“We are very poor. We cannot reconstruct our homes again,” she said. “We have nothing to eat.”
All her family’s food supplies are buried under the rubble.
“There is nowhere to go,” she added. “I demand the Taliban rebuild our houses.”
All the villagers we meet want to show us the damage to their homes done by the earthquake.
They have lost their homes, livelihoods and loved ones. Possessions are scattered amongst the debris: blankets, pots, beds stick out from the rubble.
The villagers want the world to see how their lives have been devastated, but also more tangibly, to have their names added to aid distribution schemes. A number of aid agencies have reached the scene but it’s clear more help is needed.