Aftershocks hampered rescue efforts Tuesday after a series of major earthquakes rocked Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan starting Monday night, killing at least 2,000 people, according to Afghan officials.
Hundreds of bodies have been recovered in remote villages in the rugged Hindu Kush mountains as the interim government struggled to cope with the latest crisis to hit the war-ravaged nation. A UN relief agency said the toll could approach 5,000.
A Kabul Foreign Ministry official said the district capital of Nahrin, near the epicenter, had been destroyed, and a Defense Ministry spokesman said 1,500 homes in that town alone had crumbled.
"It was a very heart-rending catastrophe," Interior Minister Younous Qanooni said at Kabul airport on his way to the quake-hit area.
"About 2,000 died. The bodies of 1,800 have been pulled out of the rubble, but many more are still buried," he said. "More than 3,000 have been injured and 30,000 been displaced."
"It is beyond the interim government to deal with this tragedy. We ask all international agencies and foreign countries to help us in this emergency situation."
Higher toll expected
There were strong indications the death toll be higher. A UN relief agency said it received a report that as many as 4,800 people perished in the natural disaster.
"According to information from local sources there are 1,500 deaths and we have an unconfirmed estimate of 4,800 deaths from the office of Prime Minister Hamid Karzai," a spokeswoman for the Organization for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
There was no confirmation of that number from Karzai's office or from other officials.
"The earthquake is more extensive than we thought. There are 10,000 homes destroyed," the OCHA spokeswoman said.
US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad promised assistance to the interim authority and to local Afghans in dealing with the tragedy.
By early afternoon, 600 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage of collapsed homes, said Defense Ministry official Mira Jan.
"I can say that 90 percent of Nahrin has been destroyed," he said. "We asked (peacekeepers) and all other humanitarian non-governmental organizations to help the people there because they lost everything. They need tents, medicines, everything."
Homes devastated
Gen. Khalil, a military commander from a town in the area, Pul-e-Kumri, said "we didn't see any houses standing" in Nahrin.
Zalmay Khalilzad, US special envoy to Afghanistan, says the US will help with earthquake aid and recovery efforts.
"Everyone is trying to find the members of their families to bring them out of the destroyed walls or collapsed areas," he said by satellite telephone. "The earthquake is going on, and each time, the people are very afraid."
Karzai postponed his trip to Turkey set for Wednesday because of the latest quake, an Afghan Minister Haji Mangal Hussain said. Karzai, who was traveling with the health and defense ministers, will soon visit the affected area, he said.
Plagued by quakes
Earthquakes and seismic activity are common in this part of the world and particularly in the Hindu Kush mountains, though they are not usually felt over such a wide area. A 6.9-magnitude quake based in the same region on May 30, 1998, killed more than 5,000 people.
The offices of ACTED were destroyed, said Shoja Zare, an ACTED radio operator in Kabul who was in contact with colleagues in Nahrin, which is about 90 miles north of Kabul.
"Each five or 10 minutes there is a shake still going on," he said. "There are no NGOs (non-governmental organizations), there is no hospital, there is no doctor to help these people."
Aid workers in the northern town of Mazar-e-Sharif, some 120 miles northwest of Nahrin, said they felt the quake on Monday night and ran out into the streets. Light shocks were also felt in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Centered in the Hindu Kush
The US Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., said the 6.0 magnitude quake Monday was centered about 105 miles north of Kabul in the Hindu Kush mountains. Another quake early Tuesday morning measured 5.0, USGS said on its Web site.
A 7.2-magnitude quake in the Hindu Kush mountains on March 3 killed more than 100 people. That quake was the strongest in the region since 1983.
UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said the United Nations was rushing emergency aid to the scene. He said preliminary reports indicated more than 200 houses were damaged around Nahrin.
Hassan said aid groups were trying to get tents and other emergency supplies to the homeless there.
Although Monday's quake was weaker than the one March 3, it was more shallow - about 40 miles from the surface - meaning it is more likely to cause damage, said Waverly Person, a USGS geophysicist.
The earlier quake, though stronger in magnitude, was 150 miles below the surface.
Because of primitive communications in Afghanistan, it often takes days for damage reports to become available.
( March 27, 2002)
