Relief workers at Rostak in the quake zone said 3,000 people had already been buried following Saturday's tremor which measured around 7 on the Richter scale and flattened scores of villages.

A spokesman for the Afghan mission in London put the death toll at 5,000. Relief agencies said the toll was in thousands but that it was impossible to talk about exact figures. The United Nations in a release stated, "2,000 to 3,000 killed and around 2,000 injured". The Red Cross in Geneva said the Afghan Red Crescent had a provisional estimate of "at least 1,500 dead".

Vast swathes of Takhar and Badakshan provinces have been hit hard by the the second devastating quake in the area in three months.

The UN and humanitarian agencies have launched a major rescue operation to pull out survivors and to provide assistance to thehomeless, as aftershocks hit the region every hour.