Deadly Quakes Strike in Iran
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/world/middleeast/iran-hit-by-2-earthquakes.html
August 11, 2012
Deadly Quakes Strike in Iran
By THOMAS ERDBRINK [Iran] [Persian Gulf-Central Asia] [when such occurrences of nature happen, I simply archive them as chronological markers] [it has little to do with politics but it’s often helpful to know what was happening during a period] [*]
TEHRAN — At least 250 people were killed Saturday when two powerful earthquakes struck several towns near the Iranian city of Tabriz, state-run Press TV reported, quoting government officials. Khalil Saei, the director of the crisis management headquarters in East Azarbaijan Province, confirmed the death toll and estimated that over 2,000 were injured.
As rescuers searched through the rubble, the head of the country’s emergency services, Gholamreza Masoumi, told the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency that 400 of the injured had been taken to Tabriz, the provincial capital of East Azarbaijan and home to Iran’s Azeri Turkish-speaking minority.
According to the United States Geological Survey, the quakes struck in quick succession, with the more powerful one measuring a magnitude of 6.4. Iranian news media reported that the epicenters were near four smaller cities north of Tabriz: Ahar, Heris, Mehraban
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/world/middleeast/iran-hit-by-2-earthquakes.html
August 11, 2012
Deadly Quakes Strike in Iran
By THOMAS ERDBRINK [Iran] [Persian Gulf-Central Asia] [when such occurrences of nature happen, I simply archive them as chronological markers] [it has little to do with politics but it’s often helpful to know what was happening during a period] [*]
TEHRAN — At least 250 people were killed Saturday when two powerful earthquakes struck several towns near the Iranian city of Tabriz, state-run Press TV reported, quoting government officials. Khalil Saei, the director of the crisis management headquarters in East Azarbaijan Province, confirmed the death toll and estimated that over 2,000 were injured.
As rescuers searched through the rubble, the head of the country’s emergency services, Gholamreza Masoumi, told the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency that 400 of the injured had been taken to Tabriz, the provincial capital of East Azarbaijan and home to Iran’s Azeri Turkish-speaking minority.
According to the United States Geological Survey, the quakes struck in quick succession, with the more powerful one measuring a magnitude of 6.4. Iranian news media reported that the epicenters were near four smaller cities north of Tabriz: Ahar, Heris, Mehraban and Varzaqan.
“We just wandered around the city and everybody is in a panic,” said a woman reached at the state telephone company in Ahar, a city of about 85,000. “Thank God we have not seen any dead people, but buildings are damaged.”
Officials were urging people to spend the night outside, and television images showed chandeliers shaking in living rooms and people sitting in parks.
Telephone lines were mostly cut, and cellphone services were not working in the stricken areas. In Tabriz, traffic lights were working and shops were open, one witness said over the telephone.
Iran lies on several main fault lines, and experts say Tehran could be hit by an earthquake of magnitude 7 or higher.
In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck the southern city of Bam, killing about 25,000 people.