Rescuers raced to reach a remote village in Kyrgyzstan on Monday after a strong earthquake killed at least 72 people in a mountainous area near the border with China, officials said.
The quake, which measured magnitude 6.6 according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), razed the village of Nura in the isolated Alaisky district, high in the Tian Shan mountain range.
"Right now the number of dead is 72," Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Turatbek Dzhunuchaliyev said at a press conference.
He added that more than 60 people needed urgent hospital treatment and 128 houses had been ruined in the quake, which was felt as far away as the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) away.
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