"According to preliminary information, 300 houses have been destroyed," a regional spokesman for the country's Civil Defense Committee responsible for the affected area told AFP.

Some 10,000 people have been left without shelter as scores of other homes have been damaged, the spokesman said, citing preliminary information.

Two schools, a clinic and a power line have also been destroyed, he added.

The spokesman reported no deaths but said dozens of sheep and goats were killed in the earthquake that struck around ten high-altitude villages in the Pamir mountains in eastern Tajikistan on Saturday.

The US Geological Survey reported that a 5.3-magnitude earthquake struck 235 km (145 miles) east of the Tajik capital Dushanbe at 07:15 a.m. (0215 GMT) on Saturday. It had a depth of 44.5 km (27.7 miles), the survey said.

Authorities said they were assessing damages, but their work was complicated by the location of the destroyed villages. More than 25,000 people live in the affected area, the Vanj district.

The deputy head of the district, Azimjon Shamsiddinov, told AFP preliminary damage estimates were between one million and 1.5 million dollars, a hefty amount for the impoverished ex-Soviet nation.

Some residents in the Vanj district said they were afraid there could be another quake in the coming days.

"We live as if we were on a volcano," a local resident, Nazarbek Shodiyenov, 39, told AFP by phone. "We feel constantly scared that an earthquake will strike again. We are scared to sleep at night.

"There is a feeling that the earth is constantly moving under feet."

A government commission including seismologists and geologists was expected to arrive in the Vanj district Monday morning, said a senior official with the Civil Defense Committee.

Earthquakes are relatively frequent in Tajikistan, which is located in Central Asia and borders war-torn Afghanistan.

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