DUSHANBE, October 7, 2008, Asia-Plus — A number of yurts (a yurt is a portable, felt-covered, wood lattice-framed dwelling structure used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia) in the village of Karakul in GBAO’s Murgab district were partially destroyed by Sunday’s earthquake, Muzaffar Usmonov, an official with the Committee for Emergency Situations (CES), told Asia-Plus today morning.
As it had been reported earlier, 27 families currently live in yurts in Karakul, which was the nearest Tajik area to the tremor epicenter — some 50 kilometers.
“No injured was reported in Karakul, just several yurts were partially damaged,” said the emergencies official, “If it is necessary, we are ready to evacuate residents of Karakul to safer places.”
He also noted that the humanitarian aid would be sent to Kyrgyzstan for tremor-hit people today.
We will recall that the quake measuring 6.6 on Richter scale hit the area on the border of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China Sunday night, at around 8:53 p.m. local time. In Karakul, the Dushanbe seismological station cited the magnitude as 6.0
