Two earthquakes killed up to 22 people in eastern Afghanistan, damaging villages and destroying scores of homes in a remote area near the border with Pakistan, local authorities said Friday.

The quakes hit overnight the districts of Khogyani and Sherzad in Nangarhar province near the Pakistan border and where police launched rescue efforts searching for more dead and injured under the rubble of pancaked homes.

"Four villages were seriously damaged by the two earthquakes. Twenty-two people have been killed and 30 injured. More than 200 homes have been destroyed," Khogyani district chief Haji Said Rahman told AFP.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai conveyed his condolences to local officials and tribal elders in the region, and ordered authorities to provide emergency aid as quickly as possible to the victims.

Twenty people were killed and around 50 wounded with dozens of homes destroyed in Sherzad, the presidency said in a statement.

"Hamid Karzai also instructed the Nangarhar governor and local authorities to send as soon as possible relief teams to the area, and deliver assistance to the affected," it said.

The interior ministry confirmed an initial death toll of 19.

"The police started work early this morning. All the 19 dead bodies were picked up by police," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashari told AFP.

"The work is going on and the rubble is being removed to try to find more dead bodies or injured people," he added.

Ahmad Shekib Hamraz, an official with the disaster management directorate, said hundreds of houses were razed by the quake.

"The center of the earthquake is located 45 kilometers (28 miles) from affected Sherzad district. Nineteen people have been martyred and 25 wounded. 100 houses were destroyed. Some 350 to 400 animals were also killed."

The US Geological Survey said two moderate earthquakes rattled the Hindu Kush border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the early hours of Friday.

A 5.5-magnitude quake struck at 1:57 am Afghan time (2127 GMT Thursday) 85 kilometres (55 miles) southeast of Kabul and 140 kilometres west of the Pakistani city of Peshawar, according to the US agency.

The quake was relatively shallow, at a depth of eight kilometres.

It was followed just over two hours later by a 5.1-magnitude aftershock at a depth of just three kilometres.

Northern Afghanistan and Pakistan are frequently hit by earthquakes, especially around the Hindu Kush range near the collision of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

A 7.6-magnitude earthquake in northwest Pakistan and Kashmir in October 2005 killed 74,000 people and displaced 3.5 million.