TEHRAN — A powerful earthquake that struck southeastern Iran was felt in
several countries in Asia on Tuesday, rocking buildings in the Indian
capital of New Delhi, sending panicked resident of Karachi, Pakistan,
fleeing into the streets and causing tremors through Persian Gulf
states. Iranian officials said they expected many deaths.
The earthquake measured 7.8 on the Richter scale and its epicenter was
near Khash, Iran, not far from Iran’s border with Pakistan, the United
States Geological Survey said.
An Iranian official told state television that he expected hundreds of deaths because of the severity of the earthquake.
The worst-hit area, along Iran’s southeastern border, is home to nearly 2
million people, who live in three main cities, Zahaedan, the provincial
center, and the epicenter of the earthquake between the cities of
Saravan and Khash, where roughly 400,000 people live, the semiofficial
Tabnak Web site reported.
The semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Iran’s seismology center as saying the earthquake was the worst in 40 years.
The United States Geological Survey reported that the earthquake had a
depth of 9.7 miles. Such deep earthquakes are rare and have greater
destructive capability.
Iran has often been the epicenter of powerful earthquakes, some of which
have taken tens of thousands of lives. In 2003, an 6.6 earthquake near
the city of Bam killed at least 26,000 people, and in 1990 at least
30,000 people died in a quake along the Caspian Sea. Last week, a 6.1
quake hit in Bushehr Province, home to Iran’s main nuclear reactor,
killing more than 30 people.
Unlike the earthquake in Bam, the epicenter of Tuesday’s earthquake was not directly under a densely populated area.
“The quake was felt in Sistan-Baluchistan Province in the cities of
Zabol, Konarak and Khash,” said Mahmoud Mozaffar, the head of the Relief
Office of the Iranian Red Crescent, according to local media.
“The quake was felt in seven villages, including Gasht, Kouh Sefid,
Pashtouk and Tizab. Due to the low population density of these regions,
we hope that the casualties are not too much,” he said.
In the largest city close to the epicenter, Saravan, a state of emergency was declared, other officials said.
Sistan-Baluchistan Province is among the poorest of Iran. Most residents
are Sunni Muslims and many are from the Baluchi tribe which originates
in Iran and Pakistan. The area is known for its drug trade and is
regularly the scene of bombings carried out by separatists groups.
In Karachi, the southern port city in Pakistan, local television
broadcast images of people standing out on the streets after fleeing
high-rise buildings. Tremors were felt most strongly in southern and
central parts of Pakistan.
“It seems as if the buildings will fall any minute,” an unidentified man
in Karachi told GEO News, a private television news network.
The only report of fatalities, however, came from the adjoining province
of Baluchistan, which borders Iran, where the Human Rights Commission
of Pakistan reported five deaths. Tahir Hussain, a lawyer with the human
rights group, said five people had been killed in the remote town of
Panjgur, 50 miles from the border with Iran.
“A wall collapsed and five people lost their lives, including three
children and a woman,” he said, speaking by phone from Quetta, the
capital of Baluchistan.
In New Delhi, which is periodically shaken by temblors, the distant
quake could be felt through the city, as buildings shook for more than
10 seconds and, in some areas, frightened people ran into the streets.
No injuries were reported, nor were there any early reports of property
damage in the Indian capital.
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