Paktika

When the ground heaved from last week's earthquake in Afghanistan, Nahim Gul's stone-and-mud house collapsed on top of him.

He clawed through the rubble in the predawn darkness, choking on dust as he searched for his father and two sisters. He doesn't know how many hours of digging passed before he caught a glimpse of their bodies under the ruins. They were dead.

Desperate rescuers battled against the clock and heavy rain on June 24 to reach cut-off areas in eastern Afghanistan after a powerful earthquake killed at least 1,000 people and left thousands more homeless.

The quake had a magnitude of 6.1 on the Richter scale, and the final number of victims and injured is still unknown because it is not known how many people were buried in the rubble. Therefore, it is feared that the total number of victims could be significantly higher, reports the BBC.

Survivors dug by hand Thursday through villages in eastern Afghanistan reduced to rubble by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 1,000 people, as the Taliban and the international community that fled their takeover struggled to aid the disaster's victims.

The victims of the earthquake in Afghanistan on Wednesday night increased to at least 920, said the deputy minister in charge of disaster management, AFP reported.

"According to the information we have so far, at least 920 people have been killed and 600 injured," Sharafuddin Muslim told a news conference in Kabul.

Afghanistan's state-run news agency says at least 255 people have killed in an earthquake that struck the country's eastern Paktika province.

The state-run Bakhtar news agency reported the death toll Wednesday and said rescuers were arriving by helicopter.

A US air strike in Afghanistan killed a senior Al-Qaeda commander in charge of suicide bombing and two other militants, the Pentagon said July 24.

Survivors of a horrific suicide attack which killed 57 people at a volleyball game in eastern Afghanistan told Nov. 24 how the blast ripped through a crowd of spectators enjoying the final moments of the match.
     

A suicide bomber killed at least 40 people at a crowded volleyball match in eastern Afghanistan on Nov. 23, a provincial official said.

Mukhles Afghan, spokesman for the governor of Paktika province, said at least 50 more were wounded in the attack in Yahya Khel district, where residents had gathered to watch a tournament final.

An Afghan general says the death toll from a suicide car bombing in the country's eastern Paktika province has climbed to 89, with more than 40 people wounded.
     
The blast took place on Tuesday when the bomber detonated his explosives-packed vehicle near a crowded market and a mosque in the Urgun district of Paktika province.