More than 100 people are feared dead after an earthquake struck northern Afghanistan today.
Workers for a Nahrin-based French aid agency said the quake, which measured up to 5.8 on the Richter scale, had severely damaged a nearby village.
"According to our information, the village most severely damaged is Doabi, 30 minutes drive from Nahrin," ACTED worker Hugues Belloc said. "More than 100 people are dead or injured. Other people are still trapped under the rubble".
Earlier, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the epicentre of the quake was just 40 kilometres south of Nahrin, but it was hoped the number of casualties would be considerably lower than last time.
Seismologists in Pakistan had earlier said the quake registered 5.6 on the Richter scale; the Earth Sciences Observatory in Strasbourg, France, measured the quake at 5.8.
The earthquake follows one last month in the same area that measured 6 on the Richter scale and killed at least 800 people. It left thousands of families homeless in a region suffering severe drought and civil conflict.
AFP