Earthquake death toll set to rise further

As the death toll in the massive earthquake that struck the remote Hindu Kush mountains soared above 300, officials on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border warned yesterday that casualty figures will likely leap once relief workers return from villages so remote they can only be accessed on foot or by donkey.

Rescuers in both countries were struggling to reach quake-stricken regions as officials said the combined death toll from Monday’s earthquake rose to 376.

Authorities said 258 people died in Pakistan and 115 in Afghanistan in the magnitude 7.5 quake, which was centred in Afghanistan’s sparsely populated Badakhshan province that borders Pakistan, Tajikistan and China.