Central Asia Hit By A Powerful Earthquake

Scientists said the quake struck at 1935 GMT (AFP/File, Frederick Florin)

At least 13 people have been killed and 86 injured in a 6.2-magnitude earthquake in the Fergana Valley region on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck at 1:35 am (1935 GMT Tuesday) with the epicenter just inside Kyrgyzstan, but 42 km (25 miles) southwest of Fergana, Uzbekistan. The quake occured at a shallow depth of 9.2 kilometers, rocking Fergana, a city of some 200,000 residents.

The Uzbek government reported that emergency services provided medical assistance to 86 people and 35 people were taken to nearest hospitals. The quake registered 5.0 even in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, some 235 km away from the epicenter, while Tajikistan’s second city of Khujand with a population of 150,000 people, shook with a magnitude of 6.0.

Kyrgyzstan has so far reported no casualties but the full extent of the damage in the remote region may only become apparent later when a special team dispatched by the Kyrgyz authorities finishes its work.
“It’s clear that there will be damage, the earthquake was just too strong,” said the head of the seismological institute at the Kyrgyz academy of sciences, Kanat Abdrakhmatov.