1 killed, 47 injured in Iran earthquakes

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake followed by an almost as intense aftershock and more than 17 other tremors shook the south of Iran on Sunday, killing at least one person and injuring at least 47 others, reported Xinhua, quoting official media.

The main shake happened near the small inland town of Fin at 3:37 p.m. local time (1207 GMT), the Iranian Seismological Center (ISC) wrote on its continuous monitoring report.

Less than two minutes later, the same scientific center at the University of Tehran signalled a 6.3-magnitude aftershock, very close to the same location in the southern province of Hormozgan.

Among the 17 quakes registered by the ISC's general report in the province of Hormozgan during the five hours following the first aftershock in Fin, eight had magnitudes between 4 and 4.5 on the Richter scale.

The first and so far only confirmed casualty was announced nearly an hour after the initial tremors by Mehdi Valipour, head of the relief and rescue department at the Iranian Red Crescent (IRC), who said a 22-year-old was killed in Bandar Abbas, capital city of Hormozgan Province, by a falling electric post.

A spokeswoman for Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences told the semi-official Iranian Student News Agency in the evening that 47 people had suffered injuries in the quakes.

Iranian news agencies published numerous images showing mountains covered by rising clouds of dust, big trucks vibrating, objects falling off shelves, buildings shaking and others.

Crowds of frightened people staying out of their houses in fear of the possible collapse of their buildings were also observed in Bandar Abbas, as well as in the counties of Minab and Qeshm.

In the evening, Mokhtar Salahpour, head of the IRC in Hormozgan, said the necessary equipment for emergency accommodation had been deployed in parks, schools and sports halls for the night, and items such as carpets, blankets and tents had been sent to affected areas.

As reported later by the governor of Hormozgan Mehdi Dousti, some of the livestock in Fin were lost in the earthquake, and traffic in several roads in the provinces of Hormozgan, Kerman, and Fars had to be restricted.

With many in the affected areas having lost access to electricity, telephone and internet services, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has expressed sympathy for the victims of the strong earthquake and instructed all aid agencies and concerned ministries to rush to help the quake-hit people as soon as possible, the official IRNA news agency reported.