Powerful quake in SE Iran kills 7
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Seven people were killed and hundreds were injured after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake rocked Iran's southeastern city of Hosein Abad in Kerman province Monday night, satellite channel Press TV reported on Tuesday.
"Considering the dimensions of the damage, the death toll is expected to rise," Kerman Governor General Esmail Najjar was quoted as saying.
The powerful quake, occurring at 22:12 p.m. local time (1842 GMT) and at a depth of only 5 kilometers, was 28.6 degrees North Latitude and 59.1 degrees East Longitude, the Iranian Seismological Center (ISC) said on its website.
The quake was also felt in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the cities of Zahedan, Bam, Khash, and Iranshahr, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Iran, including its capital Tehran, sits astride several major fault-lines in the earth crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes. Moderate quakes sometimes caused huge damage in some regions due to the poor construction.
The deadliest earthquake to hit Iran in recent years happened on Dec. 26, 2003, when a 6.6 magnitude quake struck Bam city and the surrounding areas in Kerman province. The earthquake left more than 26,000 people dead and some 30,000 injured.
Some Iranian officials have suggested to move the capital from Tehran to some other places. The idea of shifting the capital away from Tehran is not something new, and related preliminary planning was done in the late 1980s and again in the early 1990s.
