Central Asia quake kills at least 72

People scramble around an Emergencies Ministry helicopter to leave the earthquake hit village of Nura on Kyrgyzstan's border with China October 6, 2008.
REUTERS/Maksim Slutsky

People inspect earthquake victims in the village of Nura on Kyrgyzstan's border with China October 6, 2008.
REUTERS/Maksim Slutsky

A man stands next to a destroyed house, after an earthquake, in the village of Nura on Kyrgyzstan's border with China October 6, 2008.
REUTERS/Maksim Slutsky

BISHKEK-A powerful earthquake killed at least 72 people in Kyrgyzstan and leveled a village in the remote mountains of the Central Asian state, the health ministry said on Monday.The earthquake, measuring 6.3 according to the U.S. Geological Survey, jolted an area between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan-Central Asia's most densely populated corner.But worst affected were the high-altitude villages of south Kyrgyzstan where one settlement was destroyed completely and the fate of a scattering of others remained unclear."The total number of dead is now 72," Deputy Health Minister Madamin Karatayev said through the ministry's press service.This included 30 children who were not yet of school age, 11 students, 12 pensioners and 19 adults, he said.Three helicopters had transported 110 wounded children and adults to a hospital in the regional center of Osh.Karatayev added that most houses in the Nura village on Kyrgyzstan's border with China had been destroyed completely, including traditional clay huts.As darkness fell, rescue teams continued their search under arc lights and were prepared to work through the night, he said....

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