Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
January 6, 2017
Iranian media has reported that a magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit a village in the country’s south, killing four people, according to state television.
State TV said the earthquake struck in the early hours of January 6 in the village of Saifabad near the town of Khonj, about 1,000 kilometers south of the capital, Tehran.
State TV said the dead were all Afghan laborers working on local farms.
Mokhtar Abbasi, the governor of Fars Province, said rescue workers were at the site.
The epicenter of the quake was in a mountainous and sparsely populated area.
The U.S. Geological Survey described the earthquake as a 5.3 magnitude quake, striking at a depth of 10 kilometers.
Earthquakes are frequent in Iran, which is located on seismic faults.
In 2003, a magnitude-6.6 earthquake killed about 26,000 people and flattened the historic southeastern city of Bam.
Based on reporting by AP and ISNA