The victims died when roofs of their houses collapsed in Qadis district in the western province of Badghis, spokesman for the province Baz Mohammad Sarwary told AFP.
The quake also inflicted damage on the residents of Muqr district in the province but details including casualties were still unavailable, he said.
Qadis is one of the areas worst affected by a devastating drought, benefiting little from international aid in the past 20 years.
The country is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
Earthquakes can cause significant damage to poorly built homes and buildings in impoverished Afghanistan.
In 2015, nearly 280 people were killed when a powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake centered in the mountain range ripped across South Asia, with the bulk of the deaths in Pakistan.
In that disaster, 12 young Afghan girls were crushed to death in a stampede as they tried to flee their shaking school building.
MA/PR
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