Kabul, Afghanistan — A strong earthquake in far eastern Afghanistan killed more than 800 people and left at least 2,500 wounded as it destroyed numerous villages, a spokesman for the country’s Taliban government said Monday. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told journalists in Kabul that the vast majority of the casualties were in Kunar province, but that 12 people were killed and 255 injured in neighboring Nangarhar.  

The quake struck several towns in Kunar province late on Sunday evening, near the city of Jalalabad in neighboring Nangahar province. The 6.0 magnitude quake struck at 11:47 p.m. local time (3:17 p.m. Eastern) and was centered 17 miles east-northeast of Jalalabad, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was just five miles deep. Shallower earthquakes tend to cause more damage. 

Several aftershocks rattled the region throughout the night, including a powerful, shallow 5.2-magnitude temblor just after 4 a.m., USGS data show. The first quake shook buildings from Kabul to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital some 230 miles away, for several seconds, journalists with the French news agency AFP said.

Video from Nangarhar showed people frantically digging through rubble with their hands, searching for loved ones in the dead of night, and injured people being taken out of collapsed buildings on stretchers and into helicopters. Villagers in Kunar gave interviews outside their wrecked homes.

Muhammad Jalal, 40, a resident of Ghaziabad village in northern Kunar, told CBS News’ Sami Yousafzai in a telephone interview that he was jolted awake by the tremors and managed to escape moments before his room collapsed. 

“I was lucky, but at least two members of my family died and four were injured,” he said. “We spent the whole night looking for help, but we were helpless and hopeless.” Jalal recalled hearing his uncle crying for help from under the rubble for two hours before his voice fell silent.

Video shared on social media showed a white-bearded man in an undershirt emerging from the ruins, consoling grieving women who had lost relatives. “This was the will of God. What can we do?” he told them.

Dr. Sharafat Zaman, a spokesman for the Taliban government’s Health Ministry, said the toll was likely to rise as search and rescue work continued, noting that “several villages have been completely destroyed.”  

Rescue operations were still underway Monday and medical teams from Kunar, Nangarhar and the capital Kabul have arrived in the area, said Zaman.

The U.N. said on X that it had rescue teams on the ground “delivering emergency assistance & lifesaving support.” The Afghan Red Crescent posted on X that officials from the agency and “medical teams rushed to the affected areas and are currently providing emergency assistance to impacted families.”

For Homa Nadir, the Deputy Head of the Red Crescent in Afghanistan, it seemed like “yet another disaster, hitting at the wrong time.”

She said the emergency health organization’s information suggested at least three villages in Kunar had “been completely leveled” by the quake.

The disaster comes over four years after the Taliban retook control of the country in the immediate wake of a chaotic American withdrawal. But much of the Western world, including the U.S., has severed ties with the Taliban regime and halted financial assistance, so the country remains gripped by a humanitarian crisis and is one of the poorest nation’s in the world.

Nadir told CBS News correspondent Holly Williams that the U.S. aid cuts ushered in under President Trump will hamper the relief effort.

“We’re always expecting these disasters to happen, but it feels like in Afghanistan, people really don’t get a chance to just breathe,” she said.

Jalalabad is a bustling trade city due to its proximity with neighboring Pakistan and a key border crossing between the countries. Although it has a population of about 300,000 according to the municipality, it’s metropolitan area is thought to be far larger. Most of its buildings are low-rise constructions, mostly of concrete and brick, and its outlying areas include homes built of mud bricks and wood. Many are of poorly built.

Jalalabad also has considerable agriculture and farming, including citrus fruit and rice, with the Kabul River flowing through the city.

Afghanistan is located near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates and it is often struck with earthquakes.

A magnitude 6.3 temblor rocked Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2023, along with strong aftershocks. The Taliban government estimated that at least 4,000 perished. The U.N. gave a far lower figure of about 1,500. It was the deadliest natural disaster to strike Afghanistan in recent memory. More than 90% of those killed were women and children, UNICEF said.

In June 2022, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck parts of eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 1,000 people and injuring more than 1,500 others.

Follow live coverage of transfer deadline day today

Liverpool have reached an agreement to sign Alexander Isak from Newcastle United.

The deal is worth £130million ($176m) to Newcastle due to solidarity payments and will cost Liverpool £125m. It will set a new Premier League transfer record, surpassing Chelsea’s £106m signing of Enzo Fernandez from Benfica in January 2023. Liverpool’s purchase of Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen earlier this summer amounted to a total package of £116m, with an initial fee of £100m and £16m in potential bonuses.

Isak will undergo a medical on Monday before completing his move on a six-year deal.

The Athletic reported earlier on Sunday that talks regarding Isak’s potential Liverpool move were ramping up ahead of the transfer deadline.

The reigning Premier League champions previously saw an offer of a £110m for the 25-year-old rejected by the north-east club, having previously indicated their willingness to do a deal for £120m.

Isak did not feature in Newcastle’s pre-season, nor any of the club’s first three Premier League games of the campaign, one of which was a 3-2 defeat to Liverpool at St James’ Park.

Newcastle’s stance had consistently been that the Sweden international was not for sale but sources with knowledge of the situation, not permitted to speak publicly, indicate they have been proceeding in recent days under the impression the move will happen.

On Saturday, they completed the club-record €75m signing of Nick Woltemade from Stuttgart and have seen two bids of £50m and £55m for Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Jorgen Strand Larsen rejected. They previously pursued Hugo Ekitike before he ultimately opted to join Liverpool.

The Athletic first reported in July that Isak wanted to leave Newcastle this summer, which led to his absence from the pre-season friendly at Celtic and tour to Asia. The striker trained individually with his former club, Real Sociedad, during that time and never returned to training with his team-mates back at Newcastle.

On August 19, Isak published a statement in which he said his relationship with Newcastle “can’t continue”. In response, Newcastle released a statement of their own, saying that the criteria for a sale had not been met and they remained open to Isak rejoining the squad.

Before the defeat by Liverpool on August 25, a boardroom-level delegation — including Jamie Reuben, the club’s minority owner, and a contingent from the Public Investment Fund (PIF), including Jacobo Solis, who is on the board of directors — visited Isak at his home for talks.

Speaking after the Liverpool game, Howe called for “clarity” and said he is focussed on the players “that want to play” for the club.

“I’ve not been party to talks on this for a long time now. I’ve been preparing the team and giving all my energy to the players that want to play for Newcastle. I think that is where my energy is best put at the moment,” Howe said.

“We want clarity, we want to move forward, we want the narrative to change because we’re in the start of the season now.”

Isak scored 27 goals in 42 appearances for Eddie Howe’s side last season, only finishing behind Mohamed Salah in the Premier League goalscoring charts.

Liverpool have spent more than £250m this summer with Ekitike, Wirtz, Milos Kerkez, Jeremie Frimpong and Giovanni Leoni all arriving on Merseyside.

They have opened their title defence with three wins, 4-2 over Bournemouth on August 15, the 3-2 stoppage-time victory over Newcastle, and a 1-0 victory over Arsenal earlier on Sunday.

‘It was Isak or no-one for Liverpool’

Analysis by Liverpool correspondent James Pearce

Having played the waiting game throughout August, Liverpool have now reignited their pursuit of Alexander Isak.

It was telling in recent weeks that they didn’t move on to a Plan B after seeing their initial offer of £110m for the Swedish striker turned down.

It was Isak or no-one for the Premier League champions. They sat tight hoping that Newcastle’s stance would change, in the knowledge that Isak was desperate to make the move to Anfield.

And now there’s a deal to be struck they have moved quickly to try and make Isak the most expensive signing in the history of British football.

They believe he is the most complete No 9 around and Isak will give them the greater depth they crave at the top end of the field.

‘Howe must repair damage from draining saga’

Analysis by Newcastle correspondent Chris Waugh

There is an argument to be made that Isak’s time on Tyneside had become untenable — largely due to his own actions. After he essentially went on strike, infuriating the fanbase as well as some of his own team-mates, there would have been significant collateral damage moving forward, even if Eddie Howe’s stated confidence that he could reintegrate Isak had proved prescient.

However, it is hard to shake off the impression that Newcastle have buckled at the last. They have held an extremely strong stance all summer, from the ownership down, insisting repeatedly that Isak was “not for sale”. Even their statement in response to Isak’s incendiary public remarks stressed they would only sanction an exit if “conditions” were met, one of which was their £150million asking price.

Howe now has damage to repair at St James’ Park (Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Woltemade may have joined, satisfying one of those stipulations, but a second striker is yet to arrive (even if Newcastle have continued to pursue other centre-forward targets and may still bring in another). Liverpool are seemingly going to get Isak for significantly less than the figure Newcastle were demanding, even if it is still an eye-watering fee.

Howe has claimed for weeks that ultimately the decision lies with the ownership and, while Jamie Reuben, the minority investor, was among the delegation who went to Isak’s house last Monday, it is the majority stakeholders, PIF, who determine such huge calls. Newcastle’s apparently unequivocal rhetoric has, in the end, proven to have been at least partly hyperbolic.

Perhaps the club will be better off for putting an end to this epic, rather than allowing the harm to bleed into the season by leaving Howe to be asked about Isak at every press conference. But they have already allowed the situation to dominate their entire summer, when if this was going to be the outcome, maybe it should have been agreed and resolved weeks ago to allow everyone to move on and focus on the future.

As usual, it is Howe who must repair the damage from this draining saga.

(Top photo: George Wood/Getty Images)

An 11-year-old boy has died after being shot while playing a doorbell ditch prank in Houston on Saturday night, police said.

The boy and several other kids were ringing doorbells and running from multiple homes in an east Houston neighborhood, according to CNN affiliate KHOU. As the boy ran from a house on Racine Street just before 11 p.m., someone chased after him and shot him in the back, according to KHOU.

The boy was transported to hospital and was pronounced dead on Sunday, according to police.

One person was detained at the scene for questioning and has since been released, police said. Investigators are reviewing surveillance video and working with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office on possible charges, KHOU reported.

“It’ll more than likely be a murder charge,” Sgt. Michael Cass, a homicide detective with the Houston Police Department, told KHOU, noting the boy’s death does not appear to involve self-defense because the shooting “wasn’t close to the house.”

“Ding dong ditching” is an age-old prank that’s risen in popularity in recent years as a social media challenge. TikTok videos often feature variations where pranksters pound on or kick people’s front doors.

In a Dallas suburb at the end of July, a man fired multiple shots into a fleeing car after someone banged on his door, according to police. The man was arrested on charges of aggravated assault.

Some “ding dong ditch” pranks have turned deadly in the past.

In May, an 18-year-old high school senior in Virginia was shot and killed while filming a “ding dong ditch” to post on TikTok, The New York Times reported. The man accused of shooting the teen was charged with second-degree murder.

In 2020, three 16-year-olds were killed when a man rammed his car into their vehicle in retaliation for pulling a “ding dong ditch” prank on him. The man was convicted of three counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2023.

Authorities across the country have raised concerns about the door knock challenge, warning of both the potential danger and legal consequences for those involved.

“Think it’s funny to bang on doors and run? Think again,” the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana wrote in a Facebook post in August. “What might seem like a prank can lead to serious legal trouble, property damage, or worse – someone getting hurt.”

“That’s a good way to end up dead, especially in Florida,” Sheriff Mike Chitwood of Florida’s Volusia County Sheriff’s Office told CNN affiliate WESH in July, after arresting a 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy for kicking a local resident’s door one night.

The teens were captured on a doorbell camera creeping up to a family’s home and kicking the door before running away, WESH reported. Authorities took two hours to find them.

“You’re endangering your future with this TikTok challenge,” Chitwood said. “You’re going to be charged with a felony.” The two teens were charged with burglary, according to WESH.