Quake rattles Iran, no casualties reported

Tehran, June 19: An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale struck an area south of Tehran today but there were no reports of casualties, state media and aid workers said.

The epicentre was about 170 km south of the capital, where residents felt the tremor.

''So far, we have been to at least 10 villages in the area and, up to now, there has been no damage, no dead and no injured,'' Mohsen Semati, a Red Crescent rescue worker, told Reuters by telephone from the area where the quake struck.

A state TV reporter in the region said some old buildings that had been empty for some years had partially collapsed due to the quake but also said there were no casualties.

Iran's official IRNA news agency said the epicentre was around Fordu, a village about 50 km (30 miles) south of the city of Qom where residents ran into the streets on feeling the tremor. Some reports said some windows and walls cracked in Qom.

''For 12 seconds it was shaking and people poured into the streets. They were scared,'' a Qom resident said by telephone.

Even in Tehran some residents left homes for fear of more shocks.

State television said the initial quake was 5.9 on the Richter scale and aftershocks measuring as much as 5.3 followed. Earlier reports had suggested the main quake was 5.5 to 5.9 on the Richter scale.

Iran, OPEC's No. 2 oil producer, is regularly hit by earthquakes which is criss-crossed with fault lines. The Qom region where the quake struck is not close to Iran's main oil producing areas.

Reuters>