Strong Quake Hits Southern Iran, No Casualties Reported
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale jolted an area in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan on Wednesday but there are no reports of casualties, a provincial official said.
According to the Seismological Center of the Institute of Geophysics of Tehran University, the temblor struck an area near Ruydar, Hormozgan, at 11:10 a.m. (local time) on Wednesday.
Data from the seismological center showed the location of the quake as 40 km from Ruydar, 56km from Bandar Khamir, and 63 km from Kukherd.
The epicenter, with a depth of 16km, was determined to be at 27.23 degrees of north latitude and 55.11 degrees of east longitude.
The governor of Bandar Khamir, the earthquake did not cause any casualties but some of the walls of the old houses in Dashte Jayhun, which had not been retrofitted, have collapsed or cracked.
Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, being crossed by several major fault lines that cover at least 90% of the country. As a result, earthquakes in Iran occur often and are destructive.
On November 12, 2017, the western province of Kermanshah was hit by a major 7.3-magnitude quake that killed 620 people.
The deadliest quake in Iran's modern history happened in June 1990. It destroyed the northern cities of Rudbar, Manjil, and Lushan, along with hundreds of villages, killing an estimated 37,000 people.
Bam in the country’s southeastern province of Kerman witnessed a strong quake in December 2003 which killed 31,000 people.
