MINGORA, Pakistan — 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 Tuesday that casualty figures likely will leap once relief workers return from villages so remote they can be accessed only 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 centered in Afghanistan’s sparsely populated Badakhshan province that borders Pakistan, Tajikistan and China.
Three people died on the Indian side of the disputed region of Kashmir.
The earthquake, with its epicenter close to the Badakhshan district of Jarm, damaged the few existing roads, officials said. Dropping aid by air will be the only way to reach many of the needy, but those operations were not likely to start for many days until survey teams on foot return and report on the damage.
The Pakistani town closest to the epicenter is Chitral.
Monday’s quake shook buildings in the capital, Islamabad, and cities elsewhere in Pakistan and Afghanistan for up to 45 seconds in the early afternoon, creating cracks in walls and causing blackouts.
The earthquake destroyed more than 7,600 homes across Afghanistan and injured 558 people, according to a statement from President Ashraf Ghani’s office.
