Afghanistan quake death toll rises to 620

KABUL (AP): An earthquake destroyed numerous villages in eastern Afghanistan, killed at least 620 people and injured more than 1,300, a spokesman for the Taliban government said Monday.

The 6.0 magnitude quake late Sunday hit a series of towns in the province of Kunar, near the city of Jalalabad in neighboring Nangahar province, causing extensive damage.

Footage from Nangarhar showed people frantically digging through rubble with their hands, searching for loved ones in the dead of night. The injured were stretchered out of collapsed buildings and into helicopters. Villagers in Kunar gave interviews outside their wrecked homes.

The quake at 11:47 pm was centered 27 kilometers (17 miles) east-northeast of the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, the US Geological Survey said. It was just 8 kilometers deep. Shallower quakes tend to cause more damage. Several aftershocks followed.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Matin Qani told The Associated Press that 610 people had been killed and 1,300 injured in Kunar and a dozen people died and hundreds were injured in Nangarhar. Many houses were destroyed.

Rescue operations are underway and medical teams from Kunar, Nangarhar and the capital Kabul have arrived in the area, said Sharafat Zaman, a health ministry spokesman.