Bishkek/Moscow - A powerful earthquake in Kyrgyzstan killed up to 72 people, including 41 children, and wrecked dozens of homes in the mountainous south of the Central Asian state, the country's Health Ministry said on Monday. The epicentre of the quake struck Sunday in the Ferghana valley, a populated trading region at the corner of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China's far western region of Xinjiang.
According to a US Geological Survey report, the quake measured 6.6 on the Richter scale at a depth of 35 kilometres, while China's State Seismological Bureau said it measured the quake at 6.8.
The Health Ministry said 72 people were killed, Kyrgyz AKIpress news agency reported.
The Emergency Ministry said up to 100 others were injured in the mountain town of Nura along Kyrgyzstan's border with China, where at least 128 homes were destroyed, news agency Interfax reported.
Nura, a remote village of 960 residents, is "almost completely destroyed," ministry spokesman Kamchibek Tashiyev said. "It's terrifying."
"Getting aid to victims is made difficult by the remoteness of the villages which were affected by the earthquake and the destruction of the roads and poor communication," Health Ministry official Dinara Sagynbayeva said.
Tashiyev said rescue teams were ferrying the most gravely injured by helicopter to hospitals in the regional center of Osh, more than 76 kilometres away.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who was to visit the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek this week, offered condolences and humanitarian aid.
Earthquakes are frequent in the region. A magnitude-6 quake jolted the nearby Uzbek capital of Tashkent this August, though it caused little damage.
The earthquake also rattled a large area across the border in China, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
A 5.7-magnitude aftershock was recorded in Xinjiang about 20 minutes after the first quake, which mainly affected the sparsely populated Wuqia county, the State Seismological Bureau said.
The earlier quake was felt strongly in Kashgar, China's nearest city to the epicentre, state media said.
