Kyrgyzstan Earthquake

Kyrgyzstan Earthquake, Powerful magnitude 6.2 earthquakes hit a mountainous area in southern Kyrgyzstan on the border with Uzbekistan, early today, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. No serious injuries or damage were immediately reported from the quake, which occurred at 1:35 am local time in an area about 35 kilometers from the Uzbek city of Fergana, which has a population of over 200,000.

In Andijan, the second largest city in Uzbekistan, the Ferghana Valley, about 100 kilometers from the epicenter, residents told the AP that many people had left their homes in panic and were in the streets.

A duty officer at the Ministry of Emergency Services in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, said he had no precise information on the consequences of the earthquake.

A Russian news agency reported people feel the quake as far away as Dushanbe, the capital of neighboring Tajikistan, at least 300 kilometers southwest of the epicenter.

Online news portal quoted the mayor Kloop.kg one of the villages in Kyrgyzstan closest to the earthquake, Kyzyl-Kiya, who said that the plaster had fallen from the walls of some old houses, but there was no indication of material injury.

“I am with people and trying to stay calm. Utilities police, emergency services, energy and water, everything is working,” said Mayor Khabiybulla Kalmurzayev site.

According to unverified accounts online in the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, the tremor was also felt in the northern city of Talas, in Kazakhstan, 200 kilometers from the epicenter.

“My parents were in my room and got me and my 9 month old up. The ground was shaking and the furniture was shaking. Everyone rushed to the door and stood under the doorframe during 5 minutes, being afraid of aftershocks, “wrote a resident of Talas.

Earthquakes are a relatively common occurrence in this mountainous region of former Soviet Central Asia.

An earthquake of 6.6 magnitudes near the Kyrgyz border with Tajikistan and China flattened a remote mountain village in July 2008, killing at least 74 people.

A series of small earthquakes, the highest record of 5.4 on the Richter scale also hit earlier this year about 40 miles (70 kilometers) from Kazakhstan’s commercial capital, Almaty.