Powerful earthquake hits Central Asian valley

A powerful earthquake struck Central Asia's densely populated Ferghana valley on Wednesday, shaking houses and sending residents of several Uzbek and Kyrgyz cities onto the streets in panic, Reuters reported. There were no immediate reports of casualties, although local residents on either side of the border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan reported prolonged, violent shaking in the early hours of the morning that cracked the walls of their homes. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.1 earthquake had its epicentre 18 km (11 miles) underground some 42 km (26 miles)southwest of Ferghana, a city in the east of Uzbekistan close to the Kyrgyz border. "Everybody was afraid. Everything was shaking," Dilaffrus Muminova, a Ferghana resident, told Reuters by telephone. "It lasted two or three minutes, if not more." The Ferghana Valley is the most densely populated part of Central Asia, a strategic but earthquake-prone region between Russia, China and Afghanistan.