Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA)- An earthquake measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale jolted southern Iran early Friday morning, causing panic among residents of the neighboring UAE who felt the aftershocks.
The epicentre of the earthquake was somewhere between the Iranian island of Qeshm and the port city of Bandar Abbas. It was located 10 kilometers deep in the earth.
The National Centre for Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) confirmed the tremors, saying its seismic network had recorded the aftershocks at 7:36am.
Iran sits astride several major faults in the earth’s crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes, many of which have been devastating.
The worst in recent times hit Bam in southeastern Kerman province in December 2003, killing 31,000 people — about a quarter of its population — and destroying the city’s ancient mud-built citadel.
The deadliest quake in the country was in June 1990 and measured 7.7 on the Richter scale. About 37,000 people were killed and more than 100,000 injured in the northwestern provinces of Gilan and Zanjan. It devastated 27 towns and about 1,870 villages.
Tehran alone sits on two major fault lines, and the capital’s 7.5 million residents fear a major quake.
The last deadly quake in Iran happened on Sept. 10 when a magnitude-6.1 earthquake killed at least 7 people and injured almost 47 more in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan, although there have been a number of moderate quakes which have left many injured.
Dozens of aftershocks have hit the area since the quake on September 10. People across the UAE had then panicked and evacuated their buildings.
