An earthquake in southern Kyrgyzstan has killed 60 people and destroyed dozens of houses, the country's emergencies minister has said.
"According to preliminary figures, 60 people died and more than 100 locals were injured to various degrees," Kamchybek Tashiyev said on Monday.
The earthquake, which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale according to the US Geological Survey, struck at 9:52pm (1552 GMT) on Sunday.
Alaisky district, which lies in the south of the country, was the hardest hit region of Kyrgyzstan.
The village of Nura, which lies inside Alaisky, was devastated by the earthquake, Tashiyev said.
"The picture we saw was frightening. The village of Nura is fully destroyed, 100 percent, there are many injured," he said.
Attempts by the emergency services to help those in Nura, which is home to 950 people, are being complicated by a lack of access to the village.
"Efforts to assist the victims are being complicated by the distance of the villages ... from hospitals, by a lack of communications and by the destruction of the roads," Dinara Sagynbayeva, a health ministry official, said.
Kyrgyzstan a landlocked and mountainous nation of five million people, is one of the poorest states of the former Soviet Union.
PHOTO CAPTION
Kyrgyzstan map
Al-Jazeera