JAKARTA - Afghan authorities are struggling to reach remote areas hit by an earthquake that killed 1,000 people on Thursday, but are hampered by road access and poor communications, officials say.
The magnitude 6.1 quake struck early Wednesday about 160 km (100 miles) southeast of Kabul, in arid mountains dotted with small settlements near the border with Pakistan.
"We can't reach the area, the network is too weak, we are trying to get updates," Mohammad Ismail Muawiyah, a spokesman for the Taliban's military commander in the worst-hit Paktika province, told Reuters, referring to the telephone network. .
The quake killed about 1,000 people and injured 1,500, he said. Meanwhile, more than 3,000 houses were destroyed. About 600 people had been rescued from various affected areas as of Wednesday evening, he continued.
The town of Gayan, close to the epicenter, suffered significant damage with most of the mud-walled buildings damaged or completely collapsed, the Reuters team said.
The town was bustling with Taliban soldiers and ambulances when a helicopter carrying relief supplies landed nearby, creating a huge dust vortex. About 300 people sat on the ground waiting for supplies.
The rescue operation will be a major test for the authorities of the Taliban, who took control of the country last August after two decades of war and have been cut off from much international aid due to sanctions.
The Taliban-led Ministry of Defense is in charge of the rescue operation. Afghan media published images of houses shattered to rubble and bodies wrapped in blankets on the ground hours after the quake struck. Meanwhile, accurate information is limited from remote mountain villages.
Much of South Asia is seismically active as a tectonic plate known as the Indian plate pushes north onto the Eurasian plate. In 2015, an earthquake struck Afghanistan's remote northeast, killing several hundred people in Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan.
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