A powerful earthquake jolted the remote Hindu Kush mountains along Afghanistan's northeast border with Pakistan early yesterday. Reports said at least one person was dead, and probably more.

　　"There are casualties, but we are still trying to sort out the details," the head of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, Qarabig Ezedyar, said. He would not speculate on how many.

　　Police also reported hearing of deaths from the quake, which was centered in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province and caused panic even in the capital, Kabul, 275 kilometers to the southwest.

　　A woman was crushed to death when a wall collapsed in Badakhshan's Shahri Buzurg district, local police chief Abdul Musbah said.

　　The quake, which struck at 1:54 am Afghan time, was felt as far away as the Pakistani city of Lahore, near the border with India, and in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

　　The quake epicenter is about 470 kilometers southeast of Taskhent and about 600 kilometers northwest of Lahore.

　　The us Geological Survey said it had a magnitude of 6.6, while Pakistan's Seismological Center, based in the northwestern city of Peshawar, put the magnitude at 6.8.

　　(The Associated Press)