Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are facing an energy crisis as water levels have plummeted at the reservoirs powering their largest hydropower stations, officials said this week.

The two landlocked Central Asian countries are heavily reliant on hydropower. Both use massive Soviet-built hydropower plants for their domestic electricity output.

The water level in the reservoir connected to Tajikistan's Nurek power plant has dropped by 2.47 metres (8.1 feet) over the last year, the state utility firm told AFP on Friday.

The Tajik Ministry of Energy and Water Resources had said on Thursday the situation there was alarming.

In neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, the reservoir feeding Toktogul hydroelectric plant has lost two billion cubic metres (70.6 billion cubic feet) -- around 20 percent -- over the past

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