The magnitude 6 earthquake that struck eastern Afghanistan has left more than 1,400 dead and more than 3,100 injured, according to an official report updated Tuesday, one of the worst in recent decades in the country, one of the poorest in the world.

Around midnight on Sunday, the earthquake caused thousands of homes to collapse in remote villages in the mountainous provinces of Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghman.

Almost all of the victims (1,411 dead, 3,124 injured) were recorded in the province of Kounar where, as elsewhere, rescuers continue to search through the rubble, while medical staff work to comfort those who have now lost everything.

Rahmatullah Khaksar, director of the emergency room at a hospital in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, said he had received 600 injured people since Sunday evening.

"Most of the patients are being treated in trauma units, with injuries to the head, back, abdomen, and legs," he told AFP. "For those without loved ones, we have made part of the hospital available for them to stay until they are reunited with their families."

In Geneva, Indrika Ratwatte, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, warned that "potentially, the number of people affected could reach almost hundreds of thousands" in a country where, after four decades of war, 85% of the population already lives on less than a dollar a day, according to the UN.

"Duty to help"

According to the head of the Kunar Disaster Management Authority, Ehsanullah Ehsan, "the search has not stopped" and this "thanks to the mobilization of our employees and residents from surrounding districts."

"The priority is to help the injured, then we will distribute tents and hot meals to the homeless," he told AFP, as relief efforts are still struggling to reach some villages cut off by landslides.

In fact, for more than 36 hours, dozens of residents of the villages of Wadir and Mazar Dara, on the green hillsides of Kounar, have been clearing away what remains of the collapsed houses with shovels or by hand.

Oubadullah Stouman rushed to Wadir from his village on the border with Pakistan, further east, to get news of his relatives.

"People here are poor, it's our duty to help them," the 26-year-old Afghan told AFP. He himself was abruptly woken by the earthquake, but his village was not affected.

In Wadir, however, "there are only stones left, I don't even know how to describe it, it's very, very hard to see," he says, his throat tight.

International aid

Military helicopters continue their ballet towards the disaster areas, delivering aid and evacuating the dead and wounded.

The epicenter of the earthquake was located 27 km from Jalalabad, only eight kilometers deep, which explains the heavy death toll and the extent of the damage.

Afghanistan, whose Taliban authorities are recognized only by Moscow, is suffering from recent cuts in international humanitarian aid, led by the United States.

In response to the disaster in Kounar, UN agencies have all launched appeals for donations and have already released $5 million from the UN's global emergency response fund.

London, for its part, has announced one million pounds to help support affected families.

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

Since 1900, the northeast of the country has experienced 12 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 7, according to Brian Baptie, a seismologist with the British Geological Survey.

After returning to power in 2021, the Taliban faced the deadliest earthquake in 25 years: in 2023, in the Herat region, at the other end of Afghanistan, on the border with Iran, more than 1,500 people were killed and more than 63,000 homes destroyed.