Afghan authorities scramble to reach earthquake zone

Afghan authorities struggled to reach a remote area hit by an earthquake that killed 1,000 people but poor communications and a lack of proper roads hampered their efforts, officials said.
The magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck early on Wednesday about 160km southeast of Kabul, in arid mountains dotted with small settlements near the border with Pakistan.
“We can’t reach the area, the networks are too week, we trying to get updates,” Mohammad Ismail Muawiyah, a spokesman for the top Taliban military commander in hardest-hit Paktika province, told Reuters, referring to telephone networks.