TEHRAN // A 5.7 magnitude earthquake near Iran’s border with Turkmenistan killed two people, injured hundreds and caused widespread damage.
The quake, which struck at 1800 GMT on Saturday in and around the city of Bojnurd, North Khorasan province, killed a 54-year-old woman and a teenage girl, ISNA news agency reported, citing the country’s seismological centre.
More than 370 people were injured and as many as 40 per cent of houses in the area were damaged in the earthquake.
The US Geological Survey put its strength at 5.8, and said it occurred at a depth of 12.5 kilometres.
The epicentre of the earthquake was 50 kilometres from the border with Turkmenistan.
On April 5, a 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed two people near Iran’s second city, Mashhad, which is located south-east of Bojnurd.
The region is on a fault line stretching from the capital of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, into Iran’s three provinces of north, central (Razavi) and south Khorasan, according to state news agency IRNA.
The last major earthquake to strike Iran was in 2003 at Bam, in the southeastern province of Kerman, which killed 31,000 people and flattened the city.
* Agence France-Presse
