DESPERATE efforts were under way last night to take help to a remote mountainous area of northern Afghanistan devastated by a powerful earthquake which killed at least 3000 people.

''We have confirmed information from our colleagues and other aid workers in Takhar that 3000 people have died in yesterday's quake,'' Chris Teirlinck of relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres said in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Aid agencies were sceptical of earlier claims of up to 5000 dead by the Afghan opposition, which is waging a civil war against the purist Islamic Taleban militia.

The UN said the population of the entire region was thought to be 60,000 and that half of these lost their homes. The earthquake, measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale, triggered landslides and flattened or buried entire villages.

It was feared dozens of villages could have been destroyed. Teirlinck said: ''Over 36 villages have been destroyed in Takhar province and relief workers now say that 21 villages have been destroyed in Badakhshan too.''

Soldiers were reported to have pulled about 1650 bodies from the debris in eight villages which were wiped out. Those who survived were warned to leave the area because it was ''too dangerous''.

Mr Abdul Abdullah, a spokesman for the Kabul government ousted by the Taleban movement, made a desperate plea in London for international aid to help the victims. The ousted government still controls embassies, and areas of the country, particularly in the north where the quake struck.

It was centred in a mountainous area, 45 miles west of Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan province.

UN officials yesterday flew over some of the remotest and hardest hit regions.

By late yesterday, the weather in Faizabad had turned cloudy and cold. Aid workers expressed fears that it would be difficult to get supplies into the region.

An official with the Edinburgh-based British Geological Survey team, which monitors earthquakes around the world, told The Herald the earthquake was 20 times stronger than the one which caused devastation some 20 kilometres away on February 4 and killed an estimated 4000 people. It left a further 8000 homeless.

Dr David Kerridge, head of the earthquake monitoring team, ruled out any connection between the recent spate of nuclear testing in India and Pakistan and the earthquakes.

''This is an earthquake-prone zone and would appear to be a natural event. It is the kind of thing that can happen at any time,'' he said. The Government-backed team was recently charged with investigating the effects of nuclear testing worldwide. About 20 earthquakes of the same magnitude as that on Saturday occur in the world each year.

The Grangemouth-based International Rescue Corps - a charity-backed rapid UK response rescue team - was placed on standby by the UN on Saturday but was told yesterday its services were not needed. Its assistant operations manager, Mr Gary O'Shea, said: ''We were told that we would be of limited use because of the devastation caused by the earthquake and subsequent mud slides.''

Mr Abdullah, who said he had received reports of more than 5000 dead, told BBC Radio of his fears that the death toll could rise. ''I think a big, co-ordinated, well concentrated aid operation by the international community is needed.

Mr Alfredo Witschi-Cestari, head of the UN's humanitarian aid office in Pakistan, toured the worst-hit areas in a helicopter before landing briefly near the quake's epicentre in Shari Basurkh.

Tons of food, blankets, tents and plastic sheeting were expected to be loaded on to cargo helicopters yesterday in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad and sent to the worst hit areas.

According to one Afghan report, the dead included 3000 in Shari Basurkh, almost 1900 in a settlement on the outskirts of Faizabad, 140 children in a school in Rostaq, and 124 in Chaib.

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