Special correspondent Ben Brown reports from a region cursed by nature

The International Red Cross says the main priority is to fly out all the injured within the next 24 hours.

But the Red Cross co-ordinator, Svante Yngrot, adds this might be an optimistic target and that much will depend on the weather.

UN's Sarah Russell from Islamabad: "Main problem this time is low cloud and inaccessability of the villages" (1'29")

A BBC correspondent who is in Faizabad, the town at the centre of the relief effort, says the international rescue effort is now in full swing, with piles of tents, tarpaulins and medical supplies building up at the local airport.

The United Nations aid co-ordinator, Alfredo Witschi Cestari, who toured the worst-hit provinces by helicopter, said thousands of people had lost their homes.

Pictures have begun arriving of the area affected by the quake

Some villages had been completely flattened, with houses shaken off mountainsides and sent crashing into the valleys.

A spokesman for the anti-Taliban alliance, which controls the region where the earthquake struck, told the BBC: "The number of dead is more than 5,000 and more than 2,000 injured. We expect the number will rise."

Aid workers say the area affected is remote and casualty figures should be treated with caution. The UN believes 3,000 may have died, with reports still coming in.

First pictures of the catastrophe.

The earthquake - which measured up to 7.1 on the Richter scale - struck around the towns of Rostaq and Feyzabad in an area close to the border with Tajikistan.

All transport by helicopter

The BBC's Zaffar Abbas says bad weather has been hampering the relief operation

All the transport in the quake area is by helicopter as the dozens of stricken villages are very remote. Mr Yngrot form the International Red Cross said he hopes each of the three helicopters will be able to reach up to 15 villages a day.

Thousands have lost their homes

He said Afghan doctors and nurses are taking care of most of the injured in the Red Cross clinics and local hospitals, not least because they speak the local language.

Aid workers are meanwhile assessing where relief assistance is most needed and exactly what supplies are required.

Mr Yngrot said the second phase of the relief operation will start on Wednesday. This will entail sending out tents, blankets, plastic sheeting and soap to the survivors.

Food is not so urgently needed at present.

Stronger than February quake

David McCauley, Merlin charity: "Population was jut beginning to establish themselves" (3'10")

Relief workers say it was fortunate that the earthquake struck during the day when many people would have been outside their homes.

It was more powerful than the earthquake in the same area in February, which killed about 4,000 people.

Mr Abdullah: "We in Afghanistan cannot cope with the scale of the disaster."

But in the earlier quake, the tremors were at night when during the cold winter weather, most families were inside.

It also took two days before news of the disaster in February reached the outside world, and then snow prevented the relief effort from getting off the ground properly.