5.9-magnitude quake in Iran kills two, injures hundreds
by AFP Staff Writers
Tehran (AFP) Jan 29, 2023

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck northwest Iran near the border with Turkey late Saturday, killing at least two people and injuring hundreds, state media said.

The shallow quake hit the city of Khoy in West Azerbaijan province at 9:44pm (1814 GMT), the Seismological Center of the University of Tehran said.

"So far this quake has left 580 injured and two dead," West Azerbaijan governor Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian said, quoted by IRNA news agency.

"The minister of interior and the chief of the Red Crescent Society are on their way to Khoy," he added.

Iran sits astride the boundaries of several major tectonic plates and experiences frequent seismic activity.

On January 18, a 5.8 quake near Khoy left hundreds injured.

In February 2020, a 5.7-magnitude earthquake that rattled the western village of Habash-e Olya killed at least nine people over the border in neighbouring Turkey.

Iran's deadliest recorded quake was a 7.4-magnitude tremor in 1990 that killed 40,000 people in the country's north, injured 300,000 and left half a million homeless.

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