70 die in Kyrgyzstan quake

ALMATY, Kazakhstan - A powerful earthquake rocked Kyrgyzstan, leveling a remote mountain village and killing up to 70 people, officials said yesterday.

According to the US Geological Survey, the quake measured 6.6 and struck at 10 p.m. Sunday in the Osh region in the south of the former Soviet Central Asian republic.

It flattened Nura, a town of about 960 residents and 400 houses near the Chinese border.

"The picture we saw was frightening. The village of Nura is fully destroyed, 100 percent," said emergency situations minister, Kamchybek Tashiyev, according to the Associated Press.

Rescuers were racing to the isolated village. Casualties were being transported by helicopter to the city of Osh, 140 miles away. The death toll could rise, officials said.

Kyrgyzstan is a destitute, landlocked mountainous nation of around 5 million people, which borders China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Central Asia is a highly active seismic region and has been shaken by numerous significant earthquakes in recent years.

In 2003, a quake with a magnitude of 6.8 jolted northwest China near the Kyrgyz border, killing 268 people and destroying more than 20,000 buildings.

Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev expressed his condolences and promised to provide assistance to the stricken area.