Country escapes quake damage

No casualties or damage have been reported in Tajikistan after an earthquake struck the mountainous region early on Tuesday, according to a government official. "No casualties or damage have been reported so far," Abdurakhim Rajabov, deputy head of the Tajik emergency ministry, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on Tuesday. The quake measured up to 6.6 on the Richter scale at its peak, but according to the emergency agency, it reached between 4 and 4.5 on the Richter scale in the Tajik capital at 2:20 am local time. The earthquake was felt throughout remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan much of which suffer from poor accessibility. "The epicentre of the quake was some 250 km southeast of Dushanbe in Afghanistan," Rajabov added. The US Geological Survey said the earthquake struck the remote Hindu Kush area of the north-eastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, which borders Tajikistan, Pakistan and China. The epicentre was some 80 km southeast of the Afghan city of Fayzabad, 105 km northwest of the Pakistani city of Chitral and 125 km southwest of the Tajik city of Khorug. The tremors were also felt in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and as far east as Lahore, near Pakistan's border with India, AP reported. In Kabul, where residents ran into the streets in their nightclothes, early official reports from northern towns indicated there had been no damage. The Central Asian region is prone to various natural disasters, including earthquakes, and in May 1998, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 killed up to 5,000 people in northern Afghanistan and neighbouring Tajikistan. Another quake killed some 1,000 in northern Afghanistan in March 2002.