Powerful earthquakes leave more than 50 dead in Iran

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Mar. 31 – More than a dozen earthquakes which struck in the early hours of Friday in Iran’s western province of Lorestan flattened hundreds of towns and villages and left some 50 people dead and at least 876 people injured, state television reported. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Mar. 31 – More than a dozen earthquakes which struck in the early hours of Friday in Iran’s western province of Lorestan flattened hundreds of towns and villages and left some 50 people dead and at least 876 people injured, state television reported.

The first quake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale struck at approximately 7.47 pm on Thursday. The most powerful of the quakes measuring 6.0 struck in the city of Doroud as people were asleep in their beds at 4.47 am on Friday. Another quake with a magnitude of 5.1 came minutes later.

The governor of Lorestan told state television that at least 50 people had been killed and more than 850 people injured.

The epicentre of the quakes was in the region of Silakhor, state media reported.

Some 330 villages are said to have been between 30 to 100 percent destroyed close to the cities of Doroud, Boroujerd, and Khorramabad, the state-run news agency ISNA reported.