The massive tremor, which hit in the early hours of the morning, destroyed 200 homes in the northeastern province of Badakshan and killed 400 domestic animals, the interior ministry said.

"And 10 persons, three of them children, have got minor injuries," ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai told AFP.

The epicentre of the quake was in the Hindu Kush range in Badakshan. The sparsely populated area made up of small, remote villages has been jolted by several quakes in the past years.

Stanizai said the ministry was awaiting reports from outlying areas of the province. An aid worker in the Badakshan capital Faizabad said he had not seen any damage in the city.

The quake also injured five people and destroyed a house in Jalalabd, the capital of the eastern province of Nangahar, a doctor at the main hospital told AFP.

A woman was badly hurt when the ceiling of her home collapsed onto her, doctor Ayoob Shinwari said.

Three other people broke bones and hurt their heads when they fled their houses as the quake struck, and a university student was treated for cuts from broken glass.

The tremor shook large parts of eastern and northern Afghanistan, and was felt in the capital Kabul, but there were no immediate reports of damage from other areas.

It also jolted northern Pakistan, where it triggered panic among residents who said it felt like the strongest tremor since a 7.6-magnitude earthquake on October 8 that killed more than 73,000 people in the area.

Government and United Nations humanitarian officials said they had received no reports about damage or casualties from any part of Pakistan.

The Hindu Kush area where the quake hit is high in seismic activity, being near the collision of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

An earthquake there in March 2002, which measured 6.1, killed around 1,000 people and destroyed several villages, according to the US Geological Survey.

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