At least five people were killed and 49 injured by two strong earthquakes followed by many aftershocks in southern Iran early on Saturday, July 2.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake hit Iran’s Hormozgan province, with the area hit soon after by two strong quakes of up to 6.3 magnitude.
Some 24 tremors, two with a magnitude of 6.3 and 6.1, followed the 2 a.m. local time quake that flattened the village of Sayeh Khosh near Iran's Persian Gulf coast. The most recent tremor occurred around 8 a.m., officials told state TV.
"All of the victims died in the first earthquake and no-one was harmed in the next two severe quakes as people were already outside their homes," said Foad Moradzadeh, governor of Bandar Lengeh country, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.
Emergency services spokesperson Mojtaba Khaledi told state TV that half of the 49 people injured had been discharged from hospitals.
Saeid Pourzadeh of the Kish island crisis task force said shipping and flights in that part of the Persian Gulf had not been affected by the quakes.
State TV said 150 quakes and tremors had struck western Hormozgan over the past month.
Major geological fault lines crisscross Iran, which has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 quake in Kerman province killed 31,000 people and flattened the ancient city of Bam.