Tajikistan earthquake leaves 20,000 homeless
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tajikistan earthquake leaves 20,000 homeless*
The Associated Press
Sunday, January 3, 2010; 5:27 AM
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- About 20,000 people in Tajikistan were left
homeless by an earthquake that hit a mountainous region of the
impoverished Central Asian nation, officials said Sunday.
No deaths were reported after the magnitude 5.1 quake struck the Pamir
Mountains on Saturday, the Emergency Situations and Civil Defense
Committee said.
The temblor destroyed thousands of mud-brick houses in many villages in
the Gorno-Badakhshansky region. The quake also cut electricity supplies
and communications and blocked the main road between the regional
center, the town of Vanch, and nearby villages.
Earthquakes are fairly common in the mountains of Tajikistan, one of the
poorest of the former Soviet nations.