KABUL -- More than 100 people were feared dead or injured after a new earthquake struck northern Afghanistan Friday, just weeks after some 800 died in a temblor in the same area.

Workers for French aid agency based in Nahrin, the scene of the disaster late last month, said the quake which measured up to 5.8 on the Richter scale had severely damaged a nearby village.

"According to our information, the village most severely damaged is Doabi, 30 minutes drive from Nahrin," acted worker Hugues Belloc told AFP from Pul-I-Khumri, 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Nahrin.

"More than 100 people are dead or injured. Other people are still trapped under the rubble."

Earlier, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) said that the epicenter of the quake was just 40 kilometers south of Nahrin, but it was hoped that the number of casualties would be considerably lower than last time.

"It is in a lightly-populated area, therefore, not expected to have heavy damage to buildings or people," Peter Maxwell told AFP.

He said the United Nations' Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had a base at Pul-I-Khumri, and many aid agencies were still in Nahrin as part of the extended relief effort.

"The local capacity may well be able to cope, if the supposition is correct that the damage to buildings and people is light then one would think that the capacity to do it from Nahrin or Pul-I-Khumri (was sufficient).

"If it proved to be more than that, then similar procedures could be adopted (as at Nahrin)."

Maxwell added that the earthquake was classified as "flat", which is "potentially more damaging than other quakes".

Seismologists in Pakistan had earlier said the tremor registered 5.6 on the Richter scale while the earth sciences observatory in Strasbourg, France, measured the quake at 5.8.

"The temblor hit around 10:05 Am (0405 GMT) and we are assessing its intensity," seismologist Malik Salahuddin told AFP from the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border.

The March 25 quake in the same area, which measured 6.0 on the Richter scale, killed at least 800 people, according to United Nations estimates.

It left thousands of families homeless in a region already hit by severe drought and civil conflict.