According to the first official reports on state television, at least five people were killed and over 300 got injured in the earthquake in northwestern Iran on Friday.
Iran Earthquake Live Updates
As per the Iranian Seismological Center report, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck about 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of the city of Tabriz, in East Azerbaijan Province, in the early morning hours at 2:17 a.m. The area is some 400 kilometers (250 miles) northwest of Iran’s capital, Tehran. However, it was a “moderate” earthquake that was eight kilometers (five miles) deep and followed by four aftershocks.
The state television reported that the quake injured at least 312 people, though only 13 needed to be hospitalized. It described many of the injuries happening when people fled in panic.
Reportedly, the head of Iran’s emergency medical services, Pirhossein Koulivand, gave the casualty figures to the state television. There were no immediate video or images broadcast from the area.
Earthquake in Iran 5.9 Magnitude Richter Scale
According to the officials, the rescue teams have been sent to the region. State TV has also reported that the earthquake destroyed 30 homes at its epicenter.
Meanwhile, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has issued an alert warning that “significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread”. Geographically, Iran sits where two major tectonic plates meet and thus experiences frequent seismic activity. Till now, Iran has suffered a number of major disasters, including at the ancient city of Bam, which was decimated by a catastrophic earthquake in 2003 that killed at least 31,000 people.
Earlier in 1990, a 7.4-magnitude tremor in northern Iran killed 40,000 people, injured 300,000 and left half a million homeless, reducing dozens of towns and nearly 2,000 villages to rubble. While a magnitude 7 earthquake that struck western Iran in 2017 killed more than 600 people and injured more than 9,000.
In the deadly earthquake of 2005 more than 600 people were killed in Iran, and in 2012 another tremor claimed the lives of nearly 300 people. These are the two significant earthquakes that Iran has faced so far.
