by News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
More than 4,000 are injured as magnitude 7.3 earthquake hits bordering nations
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A car smashed by
debris from the earthquake at the city of
Sarpol-e-Zahab in western
Iran, Monday
Photo: AP
At
least 300 people were killed in Iran and Iraq on Sunday when a powerful
magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit the region, state media in the two
countries said, as rescuers searched for dozens trapped under rubble.
Behnam Saeedi, a spokesman for Iran's
National Disaster Management Organization, said that more than 4,000
were injured, he said.
Officials expected the casualty toll to rise when search and rescue teams reached remote areas of Iran.
Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz
offered his sympathy to the countries. "My condolences to the people of
Iran and Iraq over the loss of human life caused by the earthquake," he
said.
The earthquake was felt in several
provinces of Iran but the hardest hit province was Kermanshah, which
announced three days of mourning.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake
measured magnitude 7.3. An Iraqi meteorology official put its magnitude
at 6.5 with the epicenter in Penjwin in Sulaimaniyah province in the
Kurdistan region close to the main border crossing with Iran.
The tremor was felt in Turkey and Israel as well, causing no known damage.
Kurdish health officials said at least four people were killed in Iraq and at least 50 injured.
The quake was felt as far south as Baghdad,
where many residents rushed from their houses and tall buildings when
tremors shook the Iraqi capital.
"I was sitting with my kids having dinner
and suddenly the building was just dancing in the air," said Majida
Ameer, who ran out of her building in the capital's Salihiya district
with her three children. "I thought at first that it was a huge bomb.
But then I heard everyone around me screaming: 'Earthquake!'"
Similar scenes unfolded in Erbil, the
capital of the Kurdistan Region, and across other cities in northern
Iraq, close to the quake's epicenter.
Electricity was cut off in several Iranian
and Iraqi cities, and fears of aftershocks sent thousands of people in
both countries out onto the streets and parks in cold weather.
The Iranian seismological center registered around 50 aftershocks and said more were expected.
The head of Iranian Red Crescent said more than 70,000 people were in need of emergency shelter.
Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani
Fazli said some roads were blocked and were worried about casualties in
remote villages. The Iranian armed forces have been deployed to help
the emergency services.
An Iranian oil official said pipelines and refineries in the area remained intact.
Iran sits astride major fault lines and is
prone to frequent tremors. A magnitude 6.6 quake on Dec. 26, [2003] devastated
the historic city of Bam, 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) southeast of
Tehran, killing about 31,000 people.
On the Iraqi side, the most extensive
damage was in the town of Darbandikhan, 55 kilometers (34 miles)
southeast of the city of Sulaimaniyah in the semiautonomous Kurdistan
Region.
More than 30 people were injured in the town, according to Kurdish Health Minister Rekawt Hama Rasheed.
"The situation there is very critical," Rasheed said.
The district's main hospital was severely
damaged and had no power, Rasheed said, so the injured were taken to
Sulaimaniyah for treatment. Homes and buildings had extensive structural
damage, he said.
In Halabja, local officials said a 12-year-old boy died of an electric shock from a falling electric cable.
Iraq's meteorology center advised people to stay away from buildings and not to use elevators, in case of aftershocks.
News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2017/11/13/strong-earthquake-hits-iraq-iran-killing-at-least-300/
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