Over 800 people have been killed and nearly 3,000 injured after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan shortly before midnight on Sunday, according to the UN humanitarian agency.
Officials report that most of the casualties are in Kunar province, warning that the death toll could rise significantly as entire villages have been destroyed. The BBC reports that the remote mountainous epicenter is complicating rescue operations.
“The scale of destruction is unimaginable,” a Taliban official said.
The disaster comes as Afghanistan faces a severe drought, sharp cuts in humanitarian aid, and what the World Food Programme (WFP) has described as an unprecedented hunger crisis.
The earthquake struck at 23:47 local time (19:47 GMT), about 27 km (17 miles) east of Jalalabad, the country’s fifth-largest city, in Nangarhar province.
