By Sayed Hassib

MAZAR DARA, Afghanistan (Reuters) -Mir Salam Khan mourns the loss of his wife and three children in Afghanistan’s mountainous eastern province of Kunar, hit by an earthquake of magnitude 6 that crumbled thousands of homes.

"We buried them with wooden planks and plastic sheets so the soil would not fall directly on the bodies," said the 65-year-old resident of the village of Mazar Dara. "That was all we could do."

The shallow midnight tremor, Afghanistan's deadliest quake in years, killed more than 1,400 people and destroyed more than 5,000 houses, officials of the Taliban administration have said, but harsh weather and rugged terrain have hampered rescue work.

Here the dead are usually wrapped in shrouds and placed in graves topped with cement slabs. With supplies scarce and many destroyed homes, however, survivors said they were forced to........

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