Quake hits western Iran, injures 80
An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.9 on the Richter scale has rattled the city of Doroud in Iran’s western Lorestan Province, leaving at least 80 people wounded, a local official says.
Head of the Public Relations Department of the Lorestan University of Medical Sciences Houshang Badpey told IRNA on Saturday that at least 25 people had been hospitalized but 55 others were discharged from hospital after medical checks.
The tremor which took place at 07:22 a.m. local time (0352 GMT) damaged many buildings in Doroud and its nearby cities.
The Iranian Seismology Center located the epicenter of the earthquake at a 48.94 degrees longitude and 33.37 degrees latitude.
Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, being crossed by several major fault lines in the Earth’s crust that cover at least 90% of the country.
As a result, it is prone to frequent earthquakes, many of which have been devastating.
The worst in recent times was a 6.6 magnitude quake which hit the southern city of Bam in December 2003, killing about 30,000 people, about a quarter of its population, and destroying the city’s ancient adobe citadel.
Source: presstv.ir
