Afghan officials gave up hope on Saturday of finding any survivors from a landslide in the remote northeast, with the number killed or missing put at between a few hundred and as many as 2,700, according to the Associated Press.
The United Nations said the focus now was on helping more than 4,000 displaced people, the AP reported.
International organizations and Afghan officials said at least 300 mud brick homes were buried on Friday, but precise information on the number killed was hard to come by in the impoverished province bordering Tajikistan, according to the AP.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said more than 350 people were killed, but a spokesman for the local governor put the number in excess of 2,100, the AP reported. The Geneva-based International Organization for Migration said 2,700 were dead or missing and over 14,000 people were affected.
The United Nations said the focus was now on the more than 4,000 people displaced, either directly as a result of the landslide or as a precautionary measure from villages assessed to be at risk, the AP reported.
"That will be their cemetery," said Mohammad Karim Khalili, one of the country's two vice presidents, who visited the scene Saturday, according to the AP. "It is not possible to bring out any bodies."
"The scale of this landslide is absolutely devastating, with an entire village practically wiped away," IOM Afghanistan Chief of Mission Richard Danziger said, according to the AP. "Hundreds of families have lost everything and are in immense need of assistance."
Officials expressed concern the unstable hillside above the site of the disaster may cave in again, threatening the homeless as well as the U.N. and local rescue teams working there, the AP reported.
