A strong earthquake registering about seven points on the Richter scale has shaken an area near the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

The United States geological service and the Chinese state Seismology Bureau said the epicentre of the quake was about seventy kilometres west of the Afghan town of Feyzabad, and three hundred kilometres northeast of Kabul.

The French news agency saysheavy damage is reported in villages around Rostaq and that at least five people are reported to have been killed and about sixty others injured.