Afghanistan's deputy prime minister visited the country's east on Friday, becoming the first member of the Taliban government to do so nearly two weeks after a powerful earthquake killed more than 2,200 people.

Abdul Ghani Baradar, co-founder of the Taliban with Mullah Omar, visited the eastern province of Kunar where the worst damage was seen from the magnitude 6 earthquake on August 31, according to his office.

In the Friday sermon that followed the disaster, the government's religious authorities claimed the earthquake and its aftershocks were "divine punishment", calling on Afghans to repent.

Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, is wracked by a humanitarian crisis after decades of war.

On Friday, Baradar called on "all officials to collect aid and distribute it t

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