The ancient Iranian city of Bam was hit by a mild earthquake almost four years to the day after a catastrophic quake there killed tens of thousands of people, state media reported on Wednesday.
The suburbs of Bam in south-eastern Iran were rocked by the 4,2-magnitude quake at about 4.30pm GMT on Tuesday, the state-run Irna news agency reported.
The quake that hit Bam in the early hours of December 26 2003 killed 31 000 people, about a quarter of the city’s population, and destroyed the city’s ancient, mud-built citadel.
Iran sits astride several major faults in the earth’s crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes, many of them devastating.
Work is continuing in Bam to rebuild destroyed infrastructure as well as the citadel (Arg-e Bam), a World Heritage Site that before the quake was one of the country’s prime tourist draws for its well-preserved medieval town.
Quakes elsewhere
Meanwhile, an earthquake with magnitude 5,0 hit Venezuela on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey said in a posting on its website. The quake, at a depth of 10km, was 122km north-west of Barcelona, in the north of the country.
Also on Wednesday, a 5,4-magnitude earthquake shook Kyrgyzstan, the US Geological Survey said. The quake, at a depth of 29km, was 26km south-east of Osh, the second-largest city of Central Asian republic and located near the border with Uzbekistan.
On Tuesday, a magnitude-6,0 earthquake hit northern Japan, 100km north-east of the city of Sendai, the US Geological Survey reported. It said the quake struck 48km deep off the eastern coast of the main island of Honshu at 2.04pm GMT.
The quake was initially reported as a magnitude 6,2 but was later revised to 6,0. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre did not issue an immediate tsunami warning and no details of any casualties or damage were available. — Sapa-AFP, Reuters