Death toll in Iran quake rises

Some 700 buildings were seriously damaged, Fereidoon Hassanvand, governor of Bushehr province, was quoted as saying, adding many houses in rural areas are made of mud bricks, which are easily crumbled during quakes.

In two villages, the damaged area exceeded 80 percent, Mahmoud Mozaffar, chief of Iran’s Red Crescent Society was quoted as saying by semi-official Mehr news agency. Semi-official ISNA news agency also quoted Mozaffar as saying that the village of Baghan had been completely damaged.

Water and electricity were cut off. People are still out in the street for fear of aftershocks. Twenty rescue teams and several helicopters have been dispatched to the quake-hit region from neighbouring cities and provinces, he said. The epicentre of the quake, with a depth of 12km, was initially determined to be at 28,48 degrees north latitude and 51.58 degrees east longitude. Subsequently, 13 aftershocks hit Kaki, some 96km southeast of Bushehr, home to Iran’s first nuclear power plant, according to Iran’s Seismological Centre. The power plant was unaffected, state TV quoted the Bushehr provincial governor as saying.

Iran had reported to the UN International Atomic Energy Agency that there was “no damage to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and no radioactive release from the installation,” the nuclear watchdog said in a statement. Following the deadly earthquake, the representative of Iran’s supreme leader in Bushehr province, Ayatollah Gholam-Ali Safaei-Boushehri, announced three days of mourning in the province, according to official IRNA news agency.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced on Tuesday his sadness at the loss of life and destruction in the wake of the earthquake. The quake was also felt in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar where some high-rise buildings were evacuated.

Meanwhile, executive manager of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, Mahmoud Jafari, said yesterday that the structure of Bushehr nuclear power plant is strong enough to resist earthquakes at the scale of 8 Richter, official IRNA news agency reported.

Talking to reporters in the quake-hit region of Iran’s southern Bushehr province, Jafari said that Tuesday’s quake had “no effect on the power plant at all.”
He described the daily activities in the plant as normal and stressed that things are going as scheduled.

On Tuesday, an Iranian lawmaker said that the 6,1-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale in Bushehr province did not affect the operation at the Bushehr nuclear power plant. The plant is located about 80km away from the epicentre of the quake and, according to the latest information, no damage in the plant has been reported, Abdolkarim Jamiri, representative of Bushehr province in Iran’s parliament, told state-run IRINN TV.

Construction of Bushehr nuclear power plant was started in 1975 by several German companies. However, the work halted when the United States imposed an embargo on hi-tech supplies to Iran after the 1979 revolution. Russia signed a contract with Iran to complete the construction in 1998. Subsequently, 27 aftershocks hit Kaki and the surrounding region, according to Iran’s Seismological Centre. — Xinhua.