A major earthquake measuring 6,3 on the Richter scale hit southeast Iran early on Friday, killing “very many” people and destroying the historic quarter of the city of Bam, the governor of Kerman province told Iranian radio.
Mohamed Ali Karimi said: “We have no exact knowledge of the scale of the damage and the deaths, but the damage is very widespread and the number of victims is very high.”
“The situation is very worrying,” Karimi said earlier according to Irna news agency.
“One thing is sure: the historic quarter of Bam has been completely destroyed and many of our countrymen are underneath the ruins.”
The director of the Iranian Red Crescent, Mehdi Ebna, was quoted by Irna as saying: “The number of deaths is not yet known but rescue teams have been sent to the region.”
The government set up a crisis centre in Kerman, 200km north of Bam, and dispatched five helicopters and two huge C-130 transport planes to the site of the quake, said the deputy governor of the province, Hossein Marachi said.
Neighbouring provinces have been called upon to provide aid, rescue equipment, blankets and medicines, he said.
Quoting the Tehran University Geophysics Centre, the official agency said the quake — which occurred at 5.28am (1.58am GMT) in the Bam region of Kerman province, nearly 1 000km southeast of the capital Tehran — measured 6,3 on the Richter scale.
Telephone communications with the fort city of Bam, which is largely made of mud bricks, clay and straw, as well as the towns of Giroft and Kohnuj, had been cut off.
The Strasbourg Observatory in France put the quake at 6,6, and said the tremor was the most powerful in the region since 1998. The United States Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Centre in Virginia measured it at 6,7, with the epicentre at a depth of 33km.
Earthquakes are very frequent in Iran. Since 1991 nearly 1 000 tremors have claimed about 17 600 lives and injured 53 000 people, according to official figures.
The last major quake came in June of 2002, when another tremor of 6,3 hit northwestern Iran, killing 235 people and wounding more than 1 300.
In June 1990, 40 000 people were killed in Ghilan and Zandjan provinces, in a massive tremor measuring 7,7. — AFP