One of Afghanistan’s deadliest earthquakes in recent years has killed more than 800 people and injured at least 2,800, officials said on Monday, as rescuers struggled to pull survivors from the rubble of collapsed homes.

The magnitude 6 quake struck around midnight at a shallow depth of 10 km (6 miles), devastating eastern provinces Kunar and Nangarhar. Entire villages were razed, with mudbrick homes crumbling on the mountainous slopes near the Pakistani border.

Sharafat Zaman, spokesperson for the health ministry in Kabul, appealed for urgent foreign assistance. “We need it because here lots of people lost their lives and houses,” he told Reuters.

Administration spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed 812 deaths, with 610 people killed in Kunar alone and 12 more in Nangarhar. Authorities said rescue teams were still struggling to reach remote areas cut off from communication lines.

Abdul Maten Qanee, another health ministry official, said “all our … teams have been mobilised to accelerate assistance, so that comprehensive and full support can be provided.”

Television footage showed helicopters ferrying the wounded to hospitals, while locals and security forces worked side by side to load casualties into ambulances. The defence ministry reported 40 flights carrying 420 victims, both dead and injured, as military units spread across the disaster zone.

The quake destroyed three villages in Kunar and caused heavy damage in many others, officials said.

The tragedy adds to Afghanistan’s already dire humanitarian situation under the Taliban administration, which has faced sharp cuts in foreign aid since returning to power in 2021. Humanitarian funding has plunged from $3.8 billion in 2022 to just $767 million this year.

This is the third major earthquake since the Taliban takeover, following a 6.1-magnitude tremor in 2022 that killed 1,000 people in the east, and another in 2023 that struck Herat.

Despite the scale of the current disaster, no foreign governments have yet offered direct assistance. A spokesperson for Afghanistan’s foreign office confirmed that “so far, no foreign governments have reached out to provide support for rescue or relief work.”

However, China has pledged to provide relief aid “according to Afghanistan’s needs and within its capacity,” while UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the UN mission in Afghanistan was preparing to assist affected areas.

Afghanistan, located along the tectonically active Hindu Kush mountain range, remains highly vulnerable to earthquakes. For many survivors, this latest tragedy compounds years of displacement, conflict, and hardship.