ABC19980601.1830.0397 NEWS CAPTION There has been serious death and devastation oversaes. In afghanistan at least 3, 000 and perhaps as many as 5, 000 people have been killed by an earthquake measuring 6.9. ABC's Jim Laurie who has been covering the nuclear mom story in Pakistan reports that aid organizations are very challenged as they try to help victims in A very remote place. It is a race against time and impossible terrain. The first priorities are to evacuate the wounded and provide shelter for survivors. The quake hit at least 80 towns and villages, in one killing 140 school children. We flew over the area yesterday and saw a couple completely flattened villages. You couldn't even pick out a match stick to start rebuilding a home with. Sara Russell is one of the few U.N. aid officials to have witnessed the devastation. These villages are built on the edges of very steep mountains. And what happened when the earthquake struck was the village just went crashing down to the valley below. At the moment there is a desperate shortage of helicopters to shuttle supplies from the U.N. base camp. Roads have been wiped out and without aircraft it is days by horseback to the worst affected areas. Relief groups say it will take weeks to establish just how many have died. And months for the poor farmers here to rebuild their homes. Jim Laurie, ABC News, Islamabad.