President Hassan Rouhani has ordered officials to do whatever is necessary to accelerate relief efforts for victims of a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that struck near Iran’s border with Iraq on Sunday night.
At least 729 people were injured when the temblor hit at a depth of 7 kilometers close to Sarpol-e Zahab in Kermanshah Province, the same area where another quake last year killed over 600 people and injured thousands, IRNA reported.
Most of the wounded were treated as outpatients and only 37 people needed to be hospitalized.
No fatalities or major damage were reported in Sunday’s quake, which occurred at 20:07 local time. It was followed by at least 161 aftershocks and sent people in several cities in Kermanshah out onto the streets and parks in the cold weather.
Tremors were also felt in Kuwait and the Iraqi capital Baghdad as well as Erbil in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and other Iraqi provinces, but there was no damage, Reuters reported.
The president’s official website said on Monday that Rouhani had instructed all concerned authorities to mobilize human and material resources to assist those in need of help.
Kermanshah Governor General Houshang Bazvand said initial reports show that only one or two commercial properties were damaged, adding that 13 teams were dispatched to the affected areas shortly after the earthquake to assess the extent of damage.
Rescue teams were immediately deployed to coordinate aid efforts, the official was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Restoration of Supplies
Bazvand noted that water, electricity and gas supplies, which were cut off by the quake in some areas, have been restored.
Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi wrote in a tweet late on Sunday that communication lines were working properly in the province after initial disruptions.
According to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, 14,200 relief tents have been sent to Kermanshah to accommodate residents.
Iran sits astride major fault lines and is prone to frequent quakes. It experiences an earthquake per day on average.
Last November, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake, Iran’s deadliest quake in more than a decade, hit Kermanshah Province.
The region, nestled in the Zagros Mountains, largely rebuilt in recent decades after Iran and Iraq’s ruinous 1980s war, saw many buildings collapse or sustain major damage in the 2017 quake.
Sarpol-e Zahab, some 600 kilometers southwest of the capital Tehran, suffered half of the casualties in last year’s earthquake.
Local officials said reconstruction measures undertaken after that strong temblor helped prevent mass casualties on Sunday in the area, where some people still remain homeless.
In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude quake in Kerman Province killed 26,000 people and flattened the historic city of Bam.
