Twelve students killed in Afghan school after earthquake

Kabul, Afghanistan -- In Afghanistan's Takhar province, west of Badakahshan, at least 12 students at a girls' school were killed in a stampede as they tried to get out of the shaking buildings during a powerful earthquake Monday, a local official says.

The 7.5-magnitude quake, with an epicenter in a remote part of northern Afghanistan, was felt in cities across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. In Kabul, the earthquake caused widespread power outages and telephone cuts.

Sonatullah Taimor, the spokesman for the Takhar provincial governor, says another 30 girls have been taken to the hospital in the provincial capital of Taluqan.

A rescue official in northwestern Pakistan says it caused at least five deaths there. Another 100 people were wounded in home collapses in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Strong tremors were felt in Kabul, New Delhi and Islamabad on. In the Pakistani capital, walls swayed back and forth and people poured out of office buildings in a panic, reciting verses from the Quran.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.5 and occurred in a remote area of the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. It said the temblor occurred at a depth of 212 kilometers (130 miles).

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