Authorities said the midnight quake, 10 km (6 miles) deep, leveled homes across Kunar and Nangarhar. Administration spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid reported 812 dead in the two provinces.
Local tallies later cited at least 610 fatalities in Kunar and 12 in Nangarhar as assessments continued.
Helicopters ferried the injured from collapsed settlements, Reuters Television images showed.
The defense ministry said military teams spread across the region, with 40 flights transporting 420 wounded and dead.
Three villages in Kunar were razed, and many others badly damaged, authorities added.
Appealing for assistance, Kabul’s health ministry urged international support. “We need it because here lots of people lost their lives and houses,” spokesperson Sharafat Zaman said.
Another ministry spokesperson, Abdul Maten Qanee, said “all our […] teams have been mobilized to accelerate assistance,” citing work on security, food and medical care.
The disaster hits a government already grappling with shrinking aid and the return of hundreds of thousands of Afghans pushed back by neighboring states.
Humanitarian funding has fallen to $767 million this year from $3.8 billion in 2022.
The quake is Afghanistan’s third major deadly tremor since the Taliban seized power in 2021; a 6.1-magnitude quake that year killed 1,000 in the east.
Relief agencies say Afghanistan remains a “forgotten crisis,” with U.N. estimates showing more than half the population in urgent need. Diplomats and aid officials blame competing global emergencies and donor frustration over restrictions on women, including limits on female aid workers, for the funding squeeze.
“So far, no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work,” Afghanistan’s foreign office said.
China said it was ready to provide disaster relief “according to Afghanistan’s needs and within its capacity.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X the U.N. mission was preparing to help areas devastated by the quake.
Humanitarian officials and residents said many communities in the west were still living in temporary shelters nearly two years after a powerful tremor near Herat.
Afghanistan is highly quake-prone, particularly along the Hindu Kush, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.
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Source: Reuters, Polskie Radio 24