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58 injured in earthquake in northeastern Iran

Xinhua, January 20, 2012

• The toll of the injured rose to 58 in Thursday's earthquake in the northeast of Iran, the official IRNA news agency reported.

  Head of Neyshabur Medical Sciences University Kazem Farahmand said Thursday that the majority of the injured suffered from fractures in different parts of their bodies.

  Earlier reports by semi-official Fars news agency quoted an official in Iran's northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi as saying that 36 people were injured in Thursday's earthquake.

  The injured were hospitalized in Neyshabur city in Khorasan Razavi province and are generally in good condition, Seyyed Reza Abbasi told Fars, adding that there have been no reports of deaths so far.

  Due to the strength of the earthquake, some walls of buildings cracked and window glasses broke in Neyshabur city and nearby villages, he said.

  Telecommunication systems, including cell phones, faced disruptions in Neyshabur region after the earthquake, according to IRNA.

  An earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale jolted northeastern Iran at 16:05 local time (12:35 GMT) on Thursday.

  The epicenter, with a depth of 10.40 km, was initially determined to be at 36.2839 degrees north latitude and 58.8915 degrees east longitude, which is in Neyshabur region 64 km to the west of Iran's northeastern holy city of Mashhad, according to U.S. Geological Survey.

  Earlier, Fars said that the tremor also shook Mashhad and its suburban area, especially Tarqabeh town.

  Residents in Mashhad told Xinhua that the quake shook windows of their houses strongly, which prompted people to rush out to the streets in panic.

  Governor of Neyshabur city Mohammad Hashemi told Fars on Thursday afternoon that 20 aftershocks took place in the city and its suburbs, with emergency teams already dispatched to the quake- striken area.

  Iran, including its capital Tehran, sits astride several major fault-lines in the earth crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes. Moderate quakes sometimes caused huge damage in some regions due to poor construction.

  The deadliest earthquake to hit Iran in recent years happened on Dec. 26, 2003, when a 6.6 magnitude quake struck Bam city and the surrounding areas in Kerman province. The earthquake left more than 26,000 people dead and some 30,000 injured.

  Some Iranian officials have suggested to move the capital from Tehran to other places. The idea of shifting the capital away from Tehran is not something new, and related preliminary planning was done in late 1980s and again in early 1990s.

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