Kyrgyzstan quake kills more than 60

BISHKEK (Reuters) - A weekend earthquake killed more than 60 people in Kyrgyzstan and destroyed dozens of houses in the rural south of the Central Asian nation, the emergencies ministry said on Monday.

The earthquake, measuring 6.3 according to the U.S. Geological Survey, jolted an area between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- Central Asia's most densely populated corner prone to instability and ethnic tension.

"They (rescuers) say there are more than 60 (dead)," said emergencies ministry spokesman Abdusamat Payazov from the regional centre of Osh.

Payazov said another 50 people were injured and at least 128 houses in the high-altitude village of Nura on Kyrgyzstan's border with China had been destroyed.

"Some have been severely injured," the spokesman said.

He said the emergencies ministry and the military were sending more rescue teams and doctors to the village, which has a population of just under 1,000.

President Kurmanbek Bakiyev would visit Nura on Tuesday, his administration said. The Russian embassy in Kyrgyzstan said Moscow would provide humanitarian aid to the impoverished country.

Earthquakes are frequent in Central Asia, a region wedged between Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and China.

In 1966, the Uzbek capital Tashkent was flattened by a 7.5 earthquake when hundreds of thousands of people were left homeless. A 6 magnitude quake rocked Tashkent this August but there was no damage.

(Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko; Writing by Maria Golovnina; editing by Sami Aboudi)