Another Quake In Afghanistan

An earthquake shook northern Afghanistan on Friday morning, killing more than 30 people and injuring about 100 others, aid officials said. Aftershocks from the tremor, which Pakistani seismologists said were felt as far away as Kabul and Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, continued to rock the area.

Friday's quake was the third to strike northern Afghanistan since March 3. That quake measured 7.2 and was the strongest in the Hindu Kush mountain region since 1983. Many people in Nahrin are still living in tents after the March 25 quake.

The quake, which struck at 8:30 a.m., had a magnitude of 5.8 on the Richter Scale, according to the U.S.-based National Earthquake Information Center.

Pakistani seismologists said the new quakes had about the same force as the tremors which rocked the Nahrin area late last month. They were followed by waves of aftershocks that hampered rescue work in an area littered with landmines laid during years of war.

Most of the casualties Friday occurred in the village of Doabi, 90 miles northeast of the capital, Kabul, said Hugues Belloc, an official with the French aid group ACTED.

"Many buildings collapsed and a lot of people were buried under the rubble," Belloc said by satellite phone from nearby Pul-i-Khumri.

Another defense official in the region, Gen. Khalil, said officials had reported at least two people dead and six others injured in Nahrin.

Ahmad Shouab, aide to a local commander in Pul-i-Khumri, said several shops and buildings collapsed in the Friday quake.

The French aid group Medicines Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, sent two medical teams to the area from the northern city of Kunduz, U.N. spokeswoman Rebecca Richards said.

Another team carrying U.N. and other aid officials left Kabul by helicopter Friday to assess the situation, Richards said.

It also shook the Tajik capital of Dushanbe and the Pakistan border city of Peshawar. No casualties or destruction were reported in these cities.

Northern Afghanistan is at the heart of a desperately poor region already suffering the effects of years of drought and war.