A desperate search for survivors is on after a powerful earthquake killed at least 800 people and wounded more than 2,800 in eastern Afghanistan.

Several villages in the impoverished country's Kunar province have been wiped off the map after the magnitude 6.0 quake, with its epicentre some 27km (17 miles) northeast of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, struck at about midnight on Sunday.

Rescue workers are struggling to reach remote mountainous areas cut off from road and mobile networks.

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.