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Moderate 5.9 quake strikes Afghanistan

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The quake hit at 01:37am (2107 GMT Saturday) some 75 kilometres (46 miles) south-southeast of Feyzabad and 256 kilometres from the capital Kabul, the United States Geological Survey said in a report.

Its epicentre was 207 kilometres deep, and was 140 kilometres from Khorugh in Tajikistan and 236 kilometres from Mingora in Pakistan, USGS said.

Northern Afghanistan and Pakistan are frequently hit by earthquakes, especially around the Hindu Kush range near the collision of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

A 7.6-magnitude earthquake in Pakistan in October 2005 killed 74,000 people and displaced 3.5 million.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011