Rescue teams are frantically working to reach survivors following the devastating earthquake in eastern Afghanistan that killed more than 1,400 people.

Countless victims are still trapped in isolated areas largely inaccessible to aid workers, authorities warned on Wednesday.

The magnitude 6.0 shallow quake struck the mountainous region along the Pakistan border late on Sunday, collapsing mud-brick homes on sleeping families. Frightened by continuous aftershocks, residents have gathered in open areas or are desperately searching through rubble for missing loved ones.

Taliban authorities report the death toll has climbed to at least 1,469, with more than 3,700 people injured, marking one of Afghanistan’s deadliest earthquakes in recent decades.

United Nations refugee chief Filippo Grandi stated on X that “more than 500,000 people” in eastern Afghanistan have been affected by the catastrophe.

Kunar province recorded the highest number of casualties, while adjacent Nangarhar and Laghman provinces reported hundreds wounded and several deaths.

Relief efforts are severely hampered as aftershocks cause rockfalls, blocking access to remote villages and forcing families to remain outdoors, fearing further structural collapses.

“Everyone is afraid and there are many aftershocks,” Awrangzeeb Noori, 35, told the AFP news agency from the village of Darai Nur in Nangarhar province. “We spend all day and night in the field without shelter.”

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization announced an intensified emergency response to address the “immense” needs, seeking $4m to deliver essential health interventions and expand mobile services and supplies.

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“Every hour counts,” WHO emergency team lead in Afghanistan, Jamshed Tanoli, said in a statement. “Hospitals are struggling, families are grieving and survivors have lost everything.”

Taliban government deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said that previously unreachable areas had finally been accessed. “We cannot determine the date for finishing the operation in all areas as the area is very mountainous and it is very difficult to reach every area.”

The Taliban government’s defence ministry has organised 155 helicopter flights over two days, evacuating approximately 2,000 injured people and their relatives to regional hospitals.

Fitrat reported that a coordination camp has been established in Khas Kunar district, with two additional sites near the epicentre “to oversee the transfer of the injured, the burial of the dead, and the rescue of survivors”.

Afghanistan regularly experiences earthquakes, with the country still recovering from previous disasters. Western Herat province was ravaged in October 2023 by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that killed more than 1,500 people and damaged or destroyed at least 63,000 homes.