Earthquake hit Kyrgyzstan

Monday, October 6, 2008 at 8:08 pm

BISHKEK: A strong earthquake hit Kyrgyzstan close to the country’s border with China, killing 72 people and setting off a race to help a remote village where victims were concentrated, officials said Monday.

The quake measured a magnitude 6.6, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS) and destruction was concentrated on Alaisky district on the mountainous border. At least one big aftershock was also reported.

“According to preliminary figures, 60 people died and more than 100 local residents were injured to various degrees,” Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kamchybek Tashiyev told journalists.

The ministry said 120 houses had been flattened in the quake, which hit the Alaisky district of southern Kyrgyzstan late Sunday evening.

Destruction was concentrated in Nura, a village of some 960 people on the border with China.

USGS said the quake epicentre was 60 kilometres southeast of Sary-Tash at a depth of 27 kilometres.

An aftershock of magnitude 5.1 hit the region just over two hours later, USGS said.

Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked and mountainous nation of five million people, is one of the poorest states of the former Soviet Union and lies in a seismically active region.

Earthquake hit Kyrgyzstan

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