At least 260 people were injured when a strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake rattled Iran’s western province of Kermanshah late Sunday, said the Islamic republic’s institute of geophysics.
The epicenter of the quake was 17 kilometers southwest of the city of Sarpol-e Zahab, according to the institute, which said it struck at a depth of seven kilometers.
At least 260 people were injured in Sarpol-e Zahab and the neighboring city of Gilan-e Gharb, Kermanshah governor Houshang Bazvand told state television.
“We’ve had no reports of fatalities so far. The situation is currently under control,” Bazvand said.
“There were power and water cuts in both cities, but they lasted only a few minutes.”
The head of Iran’s emergency medical services Pirhossein Kolivand said in televised comments that most of the injuries were due to “people panicking and fleeing their homes.”
There were no official details of any damage to buildings and infrastructure.
The region was rocked by seven weaker aftershocks an hour after the initial tremor, the strongest of which was magnitude 5.2, the geophysics institue said.
– With reporting from Agence France-Presse