07:32 (GMT+4) Over 550 people have been injured in a strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake in western Iran, also felt in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Press TV reported.
01:44 (GMT+4) Iran said on Sunday that no fatalities had been reported but that more than 400 people were injured after an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 struck near its western border with Iraq, Reuters reported citing Iranian state TV.
The tremor was also felt in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and in Kuwait.
“We have had 411 injured, 80 percent of whom have been treated and released ... No fatalities have been reported,” Houshang Bazvand, governor of the western province of Kermanshah, told state TV.
00:31 (GMT+4) Over 350 people have been injured in a strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake in western Iran, also felt in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Press TV reported.
According to the US Geological Survey, (USGS), the quake occurred at a depth of 10 kilometers on Sunday.
The official IRNA news agency quoted University of Tehran’s Institute of Geophysics as saying that the quake struck 17 km west of the Iranian city of Sarpol-e-Zahab in Kermanshah Province, 18 km from Qasr-e Shirin and 33 km from the city of Gilan-e-Gharb.
The institute also put the magnitude of the quake at 6.4 followed by a number of aftershocks ranging from 5.2-3 degrees on the Richter scale.
The quake was also felt in most cities in Iran's Kermanshah and Ilam provinces as well as in Tabriz and Urmia, the capital cities of East and West Azarbaijan provinces, respectively.
Iran's Red Crescent Society has dispatched relief and rescue teams to the affected areas where local officials have reported cases of injuries among people.
Kermanshah province’s deputy governor general was quoted by Fars news agency as saying that scores of people have been treated for injuries, mostly in the two cities of Sarpol-e-Zahab and Gilan-e-Gharb.
The official added that power supply has been cut in some affected areas in Kermanshah Province with technical teams doing their best to restore electricity.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Geological Survey said the quake was felt in the capital Baghdad and in Erbil in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region with the country’s Interior Ministry saying that no damage or casualties had been reported so far.
Last November, Kermanshah Province was hit by a powerful 7.3-magnitude earthquake, which killed hundreds of people.
The epicenter of 2017 quake was 32 kilometers south of the Iraqi city of Halabja, in Iraqi Kurdistan, and just across the border from Iran, but the highest casualties occurred in the city of Sarpol-e Zahab, in Iran’s Kermanshah Province.
23:57 (GMT+4) Iran said on Sunday that no fatalities had been reported but that about 200 people were injured after an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 struck near its western border with Iraq, Reuters reported citing Iranian state TV.
The tremor was also felt in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and in Kuwait.
“About 200 to 210 people have been injured ... but we have had no fatalities,” Houshang Bazvand, the governor of Kermanshah province, told state TV.
Fears of aftershocks sent people in several cities in the western province of Kermanshah out onto the streets and parks in cold weather, Iranian media reported. Rescue teams were immediately deployed to the quake-hit area.
“No reports of any fatalities yet and most of the injured were hurt while fleeing, not due to quake damage,” Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran’s emergency services, told state TV.
The quake triggered landslides but officials said all the roads in the area remained open to traffic and electricity had been restored in most of areas hit by the tremor.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake occurred at a depth of 65 km (40 miles) and struck 114 km northwest of the city of Ilam, close to Iran’s border with Iraq.
Iranian media said tremors were felt in at least seven provinces of Iran, most strongly in Kermanshah province, where last year over 600 people were killed and thousands injured in Iran’s deadliest earthquake in more than a decade.
Local officials said reconstruction undertaken after that strong quake should mean there would not be casualties.
Kermanshah governor Bazvand said some 50 people were injured in the town of Sarpol-e Zahab, about 15 km (10 miles) from the border, near the quake’s epicentre.
The Iraqi Geological Survey said the quake had been felt in Baghdad, where the interior ministry said no damage or casualties were reported, Erbil in the Kurdistan region, and other Iraqi provinces.
The quake was felt in some areas of Kuwait but no damage was reported, state news agency Kuna said.
“Fortunately, the quake was not near bigger cities. But it might have caused damage in villages and I hope not that many villages are located where it hit,” Ali Moradi, head of Iran’s seismology centre, told state TV.
Iran sits astride major fault lines and is prone to frequent tremors. Last November, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit the Kermanshah province. In 2003, a quake of a magnitude of 6.6 in Kerman province killed 31,000 people and flattened the historic city of Bam.