🍁 K SMITH ANIL'S DIARIES: AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN EARTHQUAKE

2015 Islamabad earthquake

1. Rescue efforts are being stepped up to help those affected by the magnitude-7.5 earthquake which hit remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday.

2. More than 360 people are known to have died, most of them in Pakistan, and at least 2,000 were injured.

3. Rescue teams have been sent to remote mountainous areas where the impact of the quake is still unclear.

On Tuesday, the Afghan presidential palace tweeted that the death toll had risen to 115, with 538 people injured. It said that 7,630 homes, 12 schools and 17 mosques were among the buildings destroyed or damaged.

A spokesman said Taliban fighters had been ordered to help the victims.

In another development, Pakistani officials said several glaciers in the Karakoram mountain range had cracked, in one case causing a flood, but so far without loss of life.

Many people across the region, afraid of a new quake, spent the night sleeping outside in temperatures close to freezing.

"We have insufficient food and other aid," said Abdul Habib Sayed Khil, police chief in Afghanistan's Kunar province.

"It has been raining for four days and the weather is very cold."

In a televised address, President Ashraf Ghani urged those living in affected areas to help the rescue effort.

The governor of Badakhshan province, Shah Waliullah Adeeb, said survey teams were heading into more remote areas on Tuesday but landslides had blocked roads and helicopters were needed.

Afghan victims included 12 schoolgirls killed in a crush as they tried to leave their classes in Taluqan, Takhar province.

Mohammad Jan raises his calloused hands to pray for his two grandchildren, who died under the rubble of his house? He says he was saying his afternoon prayers when the earthquake struck.

"We wanted to call for a doctor," he tells me. "But there is no doctor here for miles. It was too late."

His house is up a precarious and rocky path, 45 minutes from the main city. Here, an extended family all live in a group of colorful painted stone and mud houses that are now either completely or partially damaged.

One of them is Amir Rehman, father of four. Although his home is still standing, it is scarred with deep gashes and cracks.

"I worked for three years in Oman to build this house," he tells me. "I can't afford another house like this." While the earthquake caused less widespread damage than expected, the poorest people with the most to lose have been the most affected.

In Pakistan, at least 248 people were killed and 1,665 injured, the national disaster agency said.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone, authorities said at least 202 people had died, and more than 1,480 were injured. At least another 30 died in the north-western tribal areas.

Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has admitted that it still has not been able to reach some of the remotest areas affected.

NDMA member Ahmed Kamal told the BBC some of those areas had become inaccessible because roads had been blocked in several places by landslides.