A magnitude 5.9 earthquake hit the province of East-Azerbaijan, northwest of Iran, on the night of Thursday 7th to Friday 8th November 2019.
Five people were killed and 120 wounded by an earthquake that struck northwestern Iran on the night of Thursday 7th to Friday 8th November 2019, according to information from Iran’s state television.
The epicentre of the initial quake, with a magnitude of 5.9, was located 8 km deep in the province of East Azerbaijan, about 120 kilometres southeast of the city of Tabriz. according to the seismological centre of the Institute of Geophysics of the University of Tehran.
It was followed by five replicas of magnitudes between 4.0 and 4.8 between 22:50 and 01:40 in the same region of Turkmantchai, according to data from the same institute.
Telephoned by telephone television, the governor of the province, Mohammad-Reza Pourmohammadi, said that five people had been killed and the earthquake had destroyed “30 houses”.
According to state television, there are also 120 wounded. A previous report reported 3 dead and 20 wounded.
41 affected villages
Rescue operations are taking place in 41 villages, but the material damage, which appears to be limited, is mainly concentrated in two localities, said television.
The population in these rural mountain areas came out of their homes after the first shock.
Around 5:30 am, the Iranian Fars agency reported that people were starting to return home and that the situation seemed to return to normal after the initial panic.
Located on the borders of several tectonic plates and crossed by several faults, Iran is an area of strong seismic activity.
The last major earthquake was in November 2017, when a 7.3-magnitude earthquake in Kermanshah province (West) killed 620 people.
In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Iran’s southeastern province of Kerman ravaged the ancient city of Bam – including the famous rammed citadel – and killed at least 31,000 people.
The most deadly earthquake of the last 30 years, a magnitude 7.4, left 40,000 dead and left half a million people homeless in the north of the country in 1990.
