KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) – A powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake killed at least 70 people as it rocked south Asia on Monday, including 12 Afghan girls crushed to death in a stampede as they tried to flee their collapsing school.

Thousands of frightened people rushed into the streets in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as the quake shook a swathe of the subcontinent.

It was centred near Jurm in northeast Afghanistan, 250 kilometres (160 miles) from the capital Kabul and at a depth of 213.5 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said.

The epicentre is just a few hundred kilometres from the site of a 7.6 magnitude quake that struck in October 2005, killing more than 75,000 people and displacing some 3.5 million more, although that quake was much shallower.

The death toll rose rapidly Monday amid reports of buildings reduced to rubble, with Pakistan heavily hit.

Horrifying news emerged of at least 12 schoolgirls being trampled to death in a northern Afghan province.

“The students rushed to escape the school building in Taluqan city (capital of Takhar), triggering a stampede,” Takhar education department chief Enayat Naweed told AFP.

“Twelve students, all minors, were killed and 35 others were injured.” 

Separately, in Nangarhar province bordering Pakistan, Six people were killed and 69 injured, Najeeb Kamawal, head of the local public hospital told AFP.

At least 28 people were known to have died in Pakistan’s northern tribal areas, 20 in the northwest, three in Gilgit-Baltistan and one in Pakistani Kashmir, various officials told AFP. 

Eight children were among the dead in Pakistan.