KABUL – A magnitude-6.6 earthquake has struck south-west Asia, shaking buildings across a number of major cities.

The United States Geological Survey said the quake was centred about 40 kilometres west of Ashkasham in remote northeaster Afghanistan, close to the border with Tajikistan and just across a narrow finger of land from Pakistan’s north-western Chitral province.

The tremor was felt in Kabul, Islamabad, Lahore and Delhi, forcing residents to leave their homes.

In October 2015, a magnitude-7.5 quake in the same border area killed close to 300 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

The latest quake was measured at a depth of 210 km.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan’s north-western frontier city of Peshawar, Khalid Khan, emergency director at the city’s main Lady Reading Hospital, said three people were treated for “multiple injuries”. Media pictures showed two children who appeared to have been injured in the quake.

People in Lahore in Pakistan’s east, 630 km from the epicentre, also reported they had felt the tremors.

In Kabul, Omar Mohammadi, a spokesman for the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority, said officials were collecting information but no reports of casualties or damage had been received so far.

The Delhi, some 620km from the epicentre, it has been reported the underground system was halted briefly.

The Hindu Kush area bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan is a seismically active area, with quakes often felt across the region. Just over a decade ago, a 7.6-magnitude quake in another part of northern Pakistan killed about 75,000 people.

– with other agencies