Eight killed in Afghan quake

Eight people were killed yesterday when a 5.3-magnitude earthquake hit a remote area of central Afghanistan, disaster management officials said.
The quake, which struck at 00:58 (2028 GMT Sunday), was centred around 190 kilometres (120 miles) northwest of Kabul at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometres, the US Geological Survey 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.
Noor Badshah Kuhistani, the head of the operational centre at the national disaster management office in Kabul, said the quake's epicentre was about 125 kilometres east of Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Balkh province bordering Uzbekistan.