Days after Afghanistan's devastating earthquake, relatives and friends of missing residents in Paktika province are desperately searching for survivors with limited resources and little hope.
Warning: This story contains details and pictures that may cause distress to some readers.
State media reported that 1,150 people had been killed, with aftershocks bringing more damage to areas already in ruin.
Taliban officials said the death toll was expected to grow as information trickled in from remote villages.
A further 1,600 people are reported to have been injured by the magnitude-6.1 quake.
Volunteer Abdul Aziz said the local community in the remote Gayan district was still looking for survivors — mostly young children and women — with hope fading with every passing hour.
Mr Aziz described the scene as "troubling and deeply tragic", with villagers unable to find a way to rescue survivors from the rubble of devastated buildings and being forced to watch them die.
"So many children got orphaned — they lost both of their parents and even other elder members of the families — and in other instances, people have lost all of their children.
"It is catastrophic."
Yaqoob Khan, who lives in Gayan district, felt he was lucky to survive, but saw more than a dozen men, women and children killed at his next-door neighbours' home.
"We were sleeping in the open air when the earth started to shake heavily," Mr Khan said, adding he rushed to take his wife, children, parents and siblings out of the rooms before the roofs started to fall.
Mass graves have been dug for earthquake victims at a nearby hilltop in Gayan.
Orphaned children sleeping outside
Many children were sleeping in the open at night, most without any parents or guardians who are feared dead in the earthquake, Salam Al-Janabi, UNICEF communication manager, told ABC News.
Mr Al-Janabi said there were long-term concerns about vulnerable families in Afghanistan's worst-hit regions.
"We are really concerned about what will happen to the children who lost fathers. Many children are now without parents or a guardian and 80 per cent of the homes have been destroyed."
Regarding rescue operations in Afghanistan, the UNICEF official said the outlook was grim.
"The broader picture is that this is a country that has been in crisis for quite a long time and the last year was very difficult for [Afghanistan's] people," he said.
He added that UNICEF's Humanitarian Appeal for Children — launched last year — had been only 26 per cent funded.
"We were able to respond quickly, but when you have issues such as diarrhoea and cholera coming up you do need to invest a lot," Mr Al-Janabi said.
Some aid had gradually begun to arrive in the remote and narrow valleys surrounding Afghanistan's rugged mountains, he said.
Afghanistan cricket superstar Rashid Khan, who plays for the Adelaide Strikers in the BBL, has started his own earthquake relief fund, announcing on Twitter that more than $US40,000 ($58,000) had been raised.
Officials fear spread of cholera
Cholera outbreaks in the aftermath of earthquakes are of particular and serious concern, the UN has warned.
Already, 500,000 cases of acute watery diarrhoea have been confirmed across the country, it said on Friday.
The estimated cost of emergency relief for Afghanistan's six worst-affected districts — with a support plan for the next three months — has been estimated at more than $US15 million ($22 million).
An emergency earthquake appeal is also under development to ensure the worst-affected areas are given priority, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Nezamuddin Katawazi, head of the Peace and Human Rights Organisation in Paktika, said the sanctions imposed on Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, the rough terrain and crippling poverty had complicated the entire rescue and relief operations.
The nearest town, Sharana, is only 130 kilometres away, but it takes nearly three hours to reach there, according to Mr Katawazi.
"I have documented at least 2,500 homes destroyed — mostly made of mud — and the community is so poor that they have lost almost everything they possessed," he said.
Mr Katawazi said medicine, food and shelter were immediately needed to save lives, particularly those of women and children.
He feared the death toll might surge much higher.
"[The Taliban] seem to be doing their best to assist with the rescue operation, but there is a grim shortage of resources and expertise," Mr Katawazi said.
He said it would need a "generous and sustainable" international effort to bring life to some sort of normalcy for the earthquake survivors in Afghanistan.
