KABUL (Reuters) - One of Afghanistan's worst earthquakes killed more than 800 people and injured at least 2,800, authorities said on Monday, as rescuers struggled to reach remote areas due to rough mountainous terrain and inclement weather.
The disaster will further stretch the resources of the war-torn nation's Taliban administration, already grappling with crises ranging from a sharp drop in foreign aid to deportations of hundreds of thousands of Afghans by neighboring countries.
Sharafat Zaman, spokesperson for the health ministry in Kabul, called for international aid to tackle the devastation wrought by the quake of magnitude 6 that struck around midnight local time, at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).
"We need it because here lots of people lost their lives and houses," he told Reuters