According to a government spokesman, the death toll from a series of earthquakes in the remote part of western Afghanistan jumped to more than 1,000" on Sunday.
"Unfortunately, the casualties are practically very high... the death toll is more than one thousand people," Bilal Karimi said of Saturday's magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Herat province, which was followed by a series of violent aftershocks.
Desperate rescuers scoured the night for survivors of an earthquake that leveled homes in western Afghanistan, with the death toll of 120 expected to grow Sunday as the scope of the disaster becomes evident.
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The magnitude 6.3 earthquake on Saturday, followed by eight strong aftershocks, shook districts 30 kilometers northwest of Herat, tumbling swaths of rural homes and sending scared city people into the streets.
Mosa Ashari, the head of emergency management in Herat, told AFP late Saturday that "about 120" people had died and "more than 1,000 women, children, and senior citizens" had been injured.
According to a spokeswoman for the national disaster agency, the death toll is expected to "rise very high."
As night fell in Zinda Jan district's Sarboland hamlet, an AFP correspondent spotted hundreds of homes destroyed near the epicenter of the quakes, which jolted the area for more than five hours.
As women and children waited in the open, men shoveled through heaps of crumbling masonry, with gutted dwellings exhibiting personal possessions blowing in the fierce weather.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that more than 600 dwellings were demolished or partially damaged in at least 12 villages in Herat province, affecting 4,200 people.
