1,000 Feared Dead in New Soviet Earthquake

An earthquake destroyed several mountain villages in Tadzhikistan today, killing up to 1,000 people and burying one village under a 45-foot wall of dirt and mud, officials said.

“Almost everybody died,” said Zainiddin Nasreddinov, editor-in-chief of the official Tadzhikistan news agency, who visited the buried village of Sharora in Soviet Central Asia.

A preliminary estimate indicated that about 600 people died there, he said in a telephone interview from Dushanbe, about 10 miles northeast of Sharora.

sh Total Near 1,000

“The total number of deaths is now evaluated at up to 1,000,” said the official Tass press agency. It said hundreds died in Sharora but did not give an exact figure.

The quake struck about 1,800 miles southeast of Moscow, north of Afghanistan and bordering China, at 2:02 a.m. local time. It was the strongest quake to hit the Soviet Union since the Dec. 7 quake that struck Armenia and killed about 25,000 people.

A torrent of dirt and mud slid from a nearby hill and buried Sharora after the earthquake hit, Nasreddinov said.

“Everything is destroyed--all the homes, the schools, the hospitals and clinics, the stores,” he said. Communications, electricity and water were disrupted and many injured were rushed to hospitals in Dushanbe and other large cities.

sh Buried Under Mud, Rocks

Tass said Sharora was buried beneath 45 feet of mud and rocks.

The TV news program “Vremya” showed aerial footage of Sharora, with white roofs of buried homes peeking through the dirt like seashells scattered on a beach.

Rescue teams were searching for survivors and soldiers were rushed to the area to keep order and restore communications and power and water to the buildings left standing, Nasreddinov said.

Roads into the area were damaged and thousands of head of cattle were killed, Tass said. Bulldozers and cranes were being sent into the area to help rescuers, the report said.

The magnitude of the earthquake was uncertain.

The U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., said it measured 6.0 on the Richter scale. The survey offices in Menlo Park, Calif., and Reston, Va., put the magnitude at 5.4 on the Richter scale.