Earthquake leaves 20,000 homeless in Tajikistan

Some 20,000 people were left homeless by an earthquake which hit Tajikistan's mountainous Gorno-Badakhshan province, a local administration spokesman has said. The earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale took place on Saturday and affected two locations in the province's Vanchsky district, in Tajikistan's Pamir Mountains, the spokesman said. "Several dozens houses inhabited by some 20,000 people have been destroyed completely or partly," he said. Rock falls and mudslides caused by the quake blocked a road linking the Vanchsky district with the province's administrative center of Khorog, he added.

Source: RIA Novosti
IRIN: The Tajikistan government has appealed for support to build seismic resistant houses after some 7,000 people were affected by a 5.3-magnitude earthquake that shook the country on 2 January.