Earthquake in Iran leaves at least three dead and more than 800 injured

A 5.9-magnitude quake killed three people and injured 816 late Saturday in northwestern Iran, near the border with Turkey, according to state media.

The quake struck the city of Khoy in Iran’s northwestern West Azerbaijan province at 9:44 p.m. local time (7:14 p.m. French time), the Tehran University Seismological Center reported.

“So far, this earthquake has killed three people and injured 816,” said the governor of West Azerbaijan province, Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian, quoted by the IRNA agency. An earlier report, given overnight, reported two deaths and 580 injuries.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi traveled to Khoy to monitor the situation, Irna said.

Already a hundred injured in mid-January

Iran is at the meeting of several tectonic plates and experiences strong seismic activity.

On January 18, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake near Khoy injured several hundred people.

In February 2020, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the village of Habash-e Olya (west) and killed at least nine people across the border with Turkey.

The deadliest earthquake ever recorded in Iran, measuring 7.4, occurred in 1990, killing 40,000 people in the north of the country and injuring 30,000. Half a million people were then left homeless.