Earthquake in Central Iran Kills at Least 126

A powerful earthquake shook central Iran today, destroying villages, killing at least 126 people and injuring more than 500, local officials said.

The epicenter of the 6.4-magnitude quake, which struck at 5:55 a.m., was near the town of Zarand, 450 miles southeast of Tehran in Kerman province, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

Kerman provincial Gov. Mohammed Ali Karimi was quoted by Iranian state television as saying that several villages had been destroyed by the earthquake.

“The death toll now stands at 126. More than 500 people have also been injured,” Interior Ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani told Iranian state-run television.

Ali Komsari, spokesman for the Kerman governor’s office, said “figures we have show that in the early hours more than 1,000 were injured and almost 400 killed.”

State television showed a village almost razed with few mud walls standing. It said that in several villages, rescuers were trying to pull people from the rubble.

Rain was reportedly hampering rescue efforts.

“All hospitals in Zarand are filled to capacity with the injured. Hospitals in the town cannot receive any more of the injured,” the broadcast said.

The villages of Hotkan, Khanook Motaharabad and Islamabad were the worst-hit areas, it said.

The television report quoted the governor of Zarand area, identified only as Rashidi, as saying that power in the region had been disrupted. He said medical and other supplies were needed, especially medicine, syringes and tents.

Zarand has a population of about 15,000.

A provincial official said there was no accurate picture of the extent of the catastrophe, but added that the earthquake was not as bad as a temblor that devastated a nearby region in December 2003.

That magnitude-6.6 quake flattened the historic southeastern city of Bam, about 150 miles southeast of Zarand. More than 30,000 people died in the Bam quake.

The quake in Bam heavily damaged the city’s ancient mud-brick citadel and the city of Arg-e-Bam. Stretching just outside Bam proper, the 2.3-square-mile Sassanian city was built of mud, clay, straw and palm tree trunks, much of it in the 16th century and earlier.

Iran sits on seismic fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. It experiences at least one slight earthquake every day on average.