Afghanistan's Taliban have requested foreign assistance as the country struggles with the aftermath of a deadly 6.1 magnitude earthquake.
Over 1,000 people got killed, and at least 1,500 have been injured.
Unknown numbers of people are buried beneath the wreckage of damaged, often mud-brick dwellings.
The UN is rushing to offer emergency shelter and food supplies in the southeastern Paktika province.
Heavy weather and a shortage of resources are hampering rescue attempts. Survivors and rescuers have informed the BBC of communities utterly wrecked around the center of the earthquake, as well as ruined highways and cell phone towers, and their worry that the death toll may increase further.
The country's worst earthquake in two decades poses a serious challenge to the Taliban, the Islamist outfit that reclaimed power last year when the Western-backed government fell.
The earthquake occurred roughly 44 kilometers (27 miles) from Khost, and vibrations were detected as far afield as Pakistan and India.
Afghanistan is in the grip of a humanitarian and economic catastrophe, and a top Taliban official, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, stated that the government is "financially unable to support the people to the level that is required."He claimed that humanitarian groups, neighboring nations, and international powers were assisting, but that "support needs to be pushed up to a very significant amount since this is a severe earthquake that hasn't been seen in decades."
António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, stated that the organization was "completely mobilized" in response to the calamity. Health teams, medical supplies, food, and emergency shelters were on their way to the disaster area.
Afghanistan is prone to earthquakes due to its location in a tectonically active area, which includes the Chaman fault, the Hari Rud fault, the Central Badakhshan fault, and the Darvaz fault. More than 7,000 people have died in earthquakes in the country during the last decade, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Earthquakes kill an estimated 560 people per year. In January, two earthquakes in the country's west killed more than 20 people and damaged hundreds of homes. Even before the Taliban took power, Afghanistan's emergency services were overburdened by natural calamities, with few planes and helicopters accessible to rescue.
However, the nation has lately faced a medical supply shortfall. According to the UN, 93 percent of Afghan families are food insecure.
According to the Red Cross' Lucien Christen, Afghanistan's "dire economic condition" means that "they [Afghan families] are unable to put food on the table."
