Iran earthquake: Five killed and hundreds injured

2019-11-09 16:10:28

At least five people have been killed and hundreds more injured in an earthquake in north-western Iran, officials say. The 5.9-magnitude tremor struck in the early hours of Friday in East Azerbaijan province, Iran's Seismological Center said. Most of the injuries were caused by crowd stampedes, state-run TV reports. Iran sits on two major tectonic plates and is prone to frequent seismic activity. In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude earthquake destroyed the historic city of Bam in the south-east of the country, killing 26,000 people. More recently, in 2017, a magnitude 7 earthquake hit the Iran-Iraq border region, killing 600 people and injuring more than 9,000.