Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Strong quake shakes Afghanistan

KABUL-A strong earthquake of magnitude 5.6 struck northeastern Afghanistan on Sunday, but caused no casualties or damage, a government official said.The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said on its website the quake's epicenter was at a depth of 208 km (130 miles).The quake occurred at about 6 am local time and was also felt in the capital, Kabul, some 260 km (160 miles) from the epicenter lying to the south of the city of Faizabad of northeastern Badakhshan province. Mountainous Afghanistan is an earthquake prone country. Thousands of people were killed by earthquakes in northern Badakhshan province in the late 1990s.In 2002 at least 1,500 people were killed when a series of quakes of between magnitude 5 and 6 struck northern Baghlan province in the Hindu Kush mountains, destroying the district capital of Nahrin.

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