Earthquake leaves 20,000 homeless in Tajikistan

DUSHANBE - Some 20,000 people were left homeless by an earthquake which hit Tajikistan’s mountainous Gorno-Badakhshan province, an official said.

The earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale took place Saturday and affected two locations in the province’s Vanchsky district in Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains, a spokesman of the local administration said.

“Several dozens houses inhabited by some 20,000 people have been destroyed completely or partially,” he said.

Rock falls and mudslides caused by the quake blocked a road linking the Vanchsky district with the province’s administrative centre of Khorog, he added.

–RIA Novosti