Quake rumbles through nations

KABUL, FEB. 25. An earthquake measuring up to 6.7 on the Richter scale rocked Central Asia today, panicking residents from Kabul to New Delhi and prompting many to flee their homes. Seismologists said the quake's epicentre was in northern Afghanistan near the Tajikistan border. No casualties have been reported. The quake was felt in India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. In the Far East, Japan too was rocked, though these quakes were unrelated. From China, reports of damage caused by a Friday quake surfaced today.

The Director-General of the Meteorological Department in Pakistan, Mr. Qamaruz Zaman, said the epicentre of the Central Asia quake was 300 km north of Peshawar in Afghanistan's Hindukush mountain range.

The quake measured 6.0 on the Richter scale, Mr. Zaman said, and it was followed by a series of aftershocks. ``It is a deep-rooted earthquake,'' Mr. Zaman told AFP, adding that its depth was 200 km below the surface. ``Such quakes cause less damage on the surface.''

In Pakistan, the quake lasted about one minute and severe jolts were felt in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Peshawar, Chitral, Gilgit and several other northern towns.

Northeast Afghanistan is notoriously quake-prone. On February 4, 1998 a quake measuring 6.4 hit the area, killing 4,500 people. Another quake on May 30 the same year measured 7.1 and killed 5,000.

The earth also shook northern Afghanistan's Badakhashan and Taqar provinces, where Opposition troops rule.

A Tajik emergency service official said tremors were as strong as 4.0 on the Richter struck the Takijistan capital Dushanbe and the Uzbek capital Tashkent.

Japan jolted twice

Two earthquakes jolted Japan, one in the northern part of the country and another near Tokyo, but there were no reports of damage or injuries, police said.

The first tremor, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.8, hit north- eastern Japan at 3.24 a.m. IST today. It occurred just below the seabed off the coast of Fukushima prefecture, about 240 km northeast of Tokyo, the meteorological agency said.

Separately, a magnitude 4.3 quake shook Tokyo and nearby cities about seven hours later at 10.35 a.m. IST. It was centered 20 km below the seabed in the Pacific Ocean about 100 km southwest of the Japanese capital.

No damage or injuries were reported from either quake, police in affected areas said. The first quake shook buildings slightly in Fukushima, but the second one was hardly felt in areas around Tokyo.

3 killed in China

A Beijing report said some 20,000 houses collapsed and three people were killed as a strong earthquake struck a remote area of China's Sichuan province on Friday. Another 109 people were injured and seven were missing after the quake, measuring 6 on the Richter scale, struck a mountainous area populated by ethnic Tibetans in the southwestern province. The official also confirmed earlier Xinhua agency reports that the quake had seriously damaged roads and services, including water supplies, power and telecommunications.

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