Quake Rocks South Iran; Many Believed Dead or Injured

TEHRAN — A strong earthquake struck southeastern Iran early today, killing and injuring many people in the historic city of Bam, a senior Iranian official said.

No precise numbers of dead and injured were immediately available because phone lines to the region had been severed. But Mohammed Ali Karimi, governor of Kerman province where Bam is located, told state media that “there are a lot of dead and injured in Bam” and that all efforts were being made to extract the victims from the rubble.

“There was a lot of damage in the city,” he said.

State radio said a lot of people were buried under debris in Bam. State television said the quake, which struck at 5:27 a.m. local time, leveled 60% of the houses in Bam and killed many people as they slept.

The official IRNA news agency said Red Crescent rescue teams had been dispatched to the region. Authorities were urging people to donate blood to help victims hospitalized in the provincial capital of Kerman.

Reports from Iran put the quake’s magnitude at 6.3, but the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center said its equipment indicated a magnitude of 6.7.

The U.S. agency said the epicenter appeared to be about 610 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran.

Bam, about 150 miles west of the Afghan border, is a tourist attraction known for its medieval architecture crafted from the nearby desert’s red clay. It is home to a giant citadel and other adobe buildings, some dating back 2,000 years. Karimi was quoted by state media as saying that the city’s historic quarter had been destroyed.

There were several aftershocks, one of magnitude 5.3, IRNA quoted the geophysics institute of Tehran University as saying.

Quakes are a regular occurrence in Iran, which is crossed by several major fault lines in the earth’s structure.

In June 2002, a quake in northwestern Iran killed 230 people, injured 1,300 and left as many as 25,000 homeless. In May 1997, more than 1,500 people were killed in a temblor that struck northeastern Iran. A magnitude 7.7 temblor killed at least 50,000 in 1990.