Earthquake kills 5 in eastern Afghanistan
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-24 09:32

An earthquake destroyed mud-brick homes and killed five people near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan on Sunday, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

Six others were injured in the quake and an army rescue team and doctors were on their way to the remote mountainous area, said Gen. Mohammed Zahir Azimi.

He said details from the area were sketchy and it was not known exactly what time the quake struck. He had earlier said the affected area was in Paktika, but he later called to say it was in Zabul — both provinces that border Pakistan.

The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan has several bases along the border with Pakistan and a spokesman for the force, Sgt. Ty Foster, said he had no reports of any damage to military property or equipment.

A spokesman for Zabul's provincial governor said buildings in five villages in remote mountains were damaged.

"Most of the homes are made from mud bricks so they are not very strong," Ali Khail said by telephone from Qalat, the regional capital. "We have sent trucks with food and water to the area."

He said the injured had been brought to hospitals in Qalat.

Pakistan's Seismological Center in the city of Peshawar said two quakes were registered along the border area early Sunday. One was magnitude 5.2 and hit just after midnight local time, while the other was at dawn and was magnitude 4.9, it said.

Afghanistan was spared much of the damage suffered by Pakistan and India from the 7.6-magnitude temblor that killed at least 79,000 people there earlier this month. That quake killed three Afghans and damaged only a handful of homes.

The government in Kabul has sent four army helicopters as well as doctors and other emergency workers to help with the recovery in Pakistan. Azimi said there was no plan to bring them back to help in Zabul and said the army still has the capacity to deal with the situation.