The few surviving families in the shattered village of Shuraq were huddled in makeshift homes, gripped by trauma and fear as aftershocks stoked fears of yet another devastating earthquake.
Reduced to living in makeshift tents in the shadow of their village - now merely a pile of mud, stone and wood - these remote north-eastern Afghans are desperate.
Shuraq is one of 34 villages believed to have been flattened in the Shahr-e-Bozurg region alone. "This has destroyed everything we have: our homes, families, food and wells," said Wakil Mohammed, one of the 350 Shuraq residents still grieving over the 40 killed in last Saturday's quake.
As a Red Cross helicopter landed on the villagers' graves, the only suitable flat surface in the steep gorge, survivors rushed from their shelters bringing with them wounded and stories of fear.
"It isn't safe for us here anymore," another villager shouted, desperate to get onto the helicopter and leave the disaster zone.
Villagers said their houses survived the initial moments of Saturday's powerful quake measuring around 7.0 on the Richter scale, but then the tremor triggered massive landslides from the steep green mountains flanked by snow-capped peaks.
"Our village was intact before," said one villager referring to another huge quake in February. "But this time it was just so full of power I thought the mountains would all fall on top of us."
Since burying the dead down-river from their small camp, villagers say they have felt several strong aftershocks, including a 30second tremor yesterday that sent small clusters of dust flowing down the hillsides. The after shocks have given the villagers a grim reminder that the disaster area is still seismically active.
"We need to go back into the village to get parts of our houses and belongings, but all this could happen again," said a bemused and clearly traumatised Ahmadullah.
While a group of children found shade under a tree, several elders were still discussing whether they should rebuild their lives or trek for days through the steep valleys to an uncertain future.
Red Cross personnel treated those with the least serious injuries, and patients selected for evacuation were placed on stretchers to be taken back to relief headquarters in Faizabad. As the helicopter lifted off the ground for the first evacuation of the day, the traumatised faces of the eight evacuees signalled their grieving was far from over.
The zone of devastation left by the earthquake may be far larger than previously thought, aid workers said yesterday.
Mr Joerg Stoecklin, spokesman for the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, said that Saturday's tremor appeared to have hit a wider area than at first feared and triggered many more landslides.
He said the ICRC was declining to estimate the death toll - which other aid agencies have put at 4,000 - simply because it was too early to make an accurate assessment. Further painstaking reconnaissance by air and on the ground was needed to establish the extent of the damage, which hit an area which is home to about 60,000 people.
Meanwhile, the Taliban militia has declared there will be no ceasefire in northern Afghanistan, where fighting continues as aid agencies struggle to get emergency supplies to survivors of the earthquake.
The Taliban, which controls two-thirds of the country, briefly halted hostilities in February when a quake killed a similar number in the region.