"Many killed" in Bam's earthquake

Tehran (AsiaNews) - A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 on the open-ended Richter scale rocked the city of Bam in southeast province of Kerman at 5:28:59 hour on Friday, announced Tehran University's Geophysics institute. Bam is situated at 180 kilometers from the provincial city of Kerman, about 1000 kilometres (620 miles) south-east from the capital Tehran

According to Governor General of Kerman Province, Mohammad Ali Karimi, the quake has caused many deaths: "The situation in Bam is worrying. The scale of damage and deaths is widespread and the number of victims is high," he told IRNA."We have no exact information about the scale of the damage since all telephone communications with the cities of Bam, Jiroft and Kohnouj had been cut off," he added.

Several aftershocks, at least one up to 5.3 degrees on Richter scale, hit the already stricken area.

Relief teams from many cities have rushed to the city. The Head of Iran's Red Crescent organization, Bizhan Daftari, who is heading for the region, said several helicopters from Tehran, Esfahan and Kerman cities are on their way to the Bam region. He added that some other relief teams from Zahedan, Bandar Abbas and Yazd have also been dispatched to the stricken city.

The emergency headquarter of natural disasters called for food and medical supplies and clothing from neighboring provinces.

Seismologists say earthquakes are frequent in Iran. In June 2002, a strong earthquake hit north-west Iran, the hill country between the cities of Qazvin and Hamadan. More than 500 people have been killed and several villages were reduced to rubble.

In February 1997, a quake measuring 5.5 tears apart rural areas of north-western Iran, killed 1,000 people. Three months later a stronger tremor, measuring 7.1, killed 1,560 in eastern Iran.

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