The quake, with its epicenter close to the Badakhshan district of Jarm, damaged numerous few existing roads, officials said.
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The head of the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority, Wais Ahmad Barmak told parliament that 7,630 homes had been destroyed and around 1,000 animals killed.
Badakhshan Gov. Shah Waliullah Adeeb said more than 1,500 houses there were either destroyed or partially destroyed.
“Obviously if a landslide comes into a village, it will take out buildings, but landslides can also take out roads and communications and power systems, so you lose the ability to access remote areas”, he said. Food and other essentials were ready to go, he said, but “getting there is not easy”.
Badakhshan is one of the poorest regions of Afghanistan, despite vast mineral deposits. It also suffers from floods, snowstorms and mudslides.
With harsh winter weather setting in across the rugged Hindu Kush mountains where the quake struck, the plight of thousands of people left homeless by the natural disaster was becoming increasingly serious.
The army used helicopters Tuesday to transport supplies to the victims and military engineers were trying to restore communication lines disrupted by landslides triggered by the quake. Its valleys and mountains make access to many areas by road nearly impossible at the best of times. Teams on foot were sent to the most remote regions to assess damage and casualties, but air relief drops were not expected to begin for a few days.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in London en route from an official visit to the United States, said he would personally oversee the rescue efforts. He said his government would soon announce a relief package to compensate those affected by the quake.
– The Afghan toll includes 12 schoolgirls trampled to death in a stampede as they fled their classrooms in Takhar province when the quake hit, 35 others were injured.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone, authorities said at least 184 people had died, and more than 1,400 were injured. More than 50 were injured and 200 houses destroyed.
In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the US Agency for global Development was ready to provide emergency shelter and relief supply kits.
He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) central leadership has started brainstorming on such a plan adding that effective implementation on building control codes for both urban and rural areas would also be ensured to avoid human causalities that often caused by natural disasters as well as absence of adequate preventive measures particularly in upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
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Pakistan has said it will not issue any appeals to the global community for help as the country has the required resources to carry out the rescue and relief work. Officials say rescuers are struggling to reach quake-stricken regions in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
