NAHRIN, Afghanistan ? Strong aftershocks jolted mountain villages Wednesday, setting off landslides that blocked relief convoys trying to reach earthquake survivors who were burying their dead and searching the rubble for survivors. The United Nations said the death toll appeared less than first feared.

The Wednesday temblors, one aftershock measuring magnitude-5.4, rumbled through villages at the base of the snowcapped Hindu Kush mountains. A 6.1 quake Monday devastated Nahrin and many surrounding villages 105 miles north of Kabul.

Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai flew to the stricken region and said about 1,000 people died. U.N. disaster relief officials said the final count probably would be somewhat lower.

Reena Ghelani of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said an onsite investigation of 42 villages indicated the death toll was probably under 800. No foreigners were believed among the dead.

Afghan officials initially estimated up to 1,800 people had died. In Kabul, Red Cross spokeswoman Caroline Douilliez said about 730 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage, and that 500 of them had already been buried.

Aid workers estimated up to 30,000 people were homeless, as aftershocks continued to jolt the majestic Hindu Kush that tower above Kabul and separate the capital from the extreme north of the country.

“Everything is in ruins,” said Joerg Denker, a program manager for the aid group, Mercy Corps. “There’s nothing standing anymore.”

The thousands of newly homeless camped out in their yards and slept in the open. Adding to their misery, intermittent rain soaked the drought-stricken region, touching off fears of more landslides. The rain made some roads impassable and cut off access to victims to the north.

The quake struck in a desperately poor region already suffering the effects of years of drought and war. Aid workers said they had not managed to reach some isolated villages because access was blocked by minefields left over from the war between the Taliban and the opposition northern alliance

Journalists flying in Afghan army helicopters from Kabul could see clusters of villagers, standing before wrecked houses, waving frantically at the aircraft, motioning it to land.

Addressing a crowd of several hundred survivors and aid workers, Karzai said that “all the people of Afghanistan share your pain.” He told the crowd that the people of Nahrin were “very, very brave. They haven’t asked for much.”

However, villagers interrupted, shouting that they had no water or electricity and were in dire need of help.

President Bush called Karzai on Wednesday to express his condolences. They spoke for about five minutes, according to White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan.

Throughout the day, residents crawled over the ruins of the town of Nahrin, pulling out the dead and burying them. As many as 700 volunteers dug with simple shovels through mounds of dirt, mud and debris, government officials said. Survivors pulled belongings out of their destroyed homes, some of which were reduced to piles of dust.

Aid began pouring in Wednesday, with the Red Cross sending 400 first aid kits to the affected area. Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, sent two medical teams on Tuesday, one from Pul-e-Kumri in Baghlan Province and another from Taloqan in neighboring Takhar Province.

The quake struck far from where most U.S. and other coalition troops are stationed. Brig. Gen. John Rosa Jr. told a Pentagon briefing that no coalition forces were hurt by the quake.

The old part of Nahrin town was leveled and some 40 other villages on Nahrin plain were affected, prompting aid groups to gear up to provide shelter for 6,000 to 7,000 families in that area alone, U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was relatively shallow about three miles beneath the surface meaning it had the power to cause more damage. But many people from the region had fled drought and conflict into Pakistan and had not returned to their homes.

“In a sense it’s lucky there weren’t more people there,” said Nigel Fisher, a senior U.N. official in Afghanistan.

A provincial military commander, Gen. Haider Khan, said he was shaken by the tragic scenes as he toured the area.

In one village, Khan said he came across workers pulling 10 members of a single family from the ruins. Only one family member, an 11-year-old boy, survived and was being cared for by relatives.

“It was very, very difficult for me to look at this,” Khan said.

Many roads were impassable, and six Afghan army helicopters were flown to the region to remove the dead and transport immunization experts, medical kits and officials.

A 12-member team from the international peacekeeping force was also on the ground to assess needs, said Flight Lt. Tony Marshall in Kabul. The U.S. Army at Bagram air base, about 60 miles from the quake’s epicenter, sent an assessment team to see if American troops could play a role in rescue and recovery efforts, said spokesman Maj. Bryan Hilferty.

ACTED, a French aid organization, has distributed half of the 1,000 tents and 2,000 blankets it has available and said 1,500 additional tents and 1,500 portable shelters were being sent in.

Officials in Kabul said the World Food Program was sending 175 tons of food. The United Nations and the European Commission also were rushing in aid.

The quake, the second to hit the Hindu Kush mountains in three weeks, created huge challenges for the new interim government. It has struggled to establish its authority in the fractious nation and encourage the return of refugees to rebuild the country after the defeat of the Taliban.

Nuristani said the quake was magnitude 6.2. The USGS measured it at 6.1 with an overnight aftershock of 5.0.

About 200 of the injured were taken to Pul-e-Kumri and Baghlan by helicopter, bus and trucks. But Gen. Khalil, a military commander from Pul-e-Kumri, said they didn’t have enough helicopters to transport all the injured.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said because the United States already was involved in food relief and other humanitarian work in Afghanistan it had sufficient supplies on hand to take care of people in the earthquake zone.

Earthquakes and seismic activity are common in the Hindu Kush mountains. Strong quakes in February and May of 1998 killed nearly 10,000 people.