“Of 500 patients who have come to the clinic since the morning, 200 have died” – that is the blunt assessment of Muhammad Gul, a staff member at a tiny clinic in Gyan, in eastern Afghanistan.
The facility has just five beds, but Tuesday’s earthquake left even these meagre resources unusable.
“All the clinic’s rooms have been destroyed,” Mr Gul told the BBC.
He said a helicopter had airlifted a handful of patients from the remote district in Paktika province to cities for treatment, and two doctors were manning a makeshift outdoor clinic to try to treat people who had nowhere else to go.
The generator supplying power has only a limited supply of fuel, and the help promised by other provinces has yet to materialise.
