Earthquake in Iran/Iraq border

Death-toll now 164 and rising with thousands more injured and missing as Iraq and Iran are bracing for another after mag 7.3 quake

the Big Wobble,

13 November, 2017

After-shocks are now a major worry as locals look for loved ones...Credit USGS.

At least 164 people were killed and more than 1,500 more were injured after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck near the Iran-Iraq border, the Iranian government said early Monday.

The state news agency, IRNA, said the official death toll was expected to rise.
The Iraqi Meteorological and Seismology Organization, meanwhile, warned that the country should brace for another possible quake in the coming hours.

The U.S. Geological Survey, or USGS, said the quake was recorded at 9:18 p.m. local time (1:18 p.m. ET) Sunday.

It measured the quake at a magnitude 7.3, while Iraq's state geologists said it was magnitude 7.5."

There are still people under the rubble," an Iranian governor, Mojtaba Nikkerdar, said on state TV, according to Reuters.

"We hope the number of dead and injured won't rise too much, but it will rise."

Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at the University of Southhampton in England, said that in a region where earthquakes are common, Sunday's quake appeared to be the largest in "a long time."

Like most of those other temblors, this one was shallow, said Don Blakeman, a geophysicist with the USGS's National Earthquake Information Center.

No large cities were near the epicenter, Blakeman said, but NBC News producers in the region said it was felt as far away as Tehran and Baghdad, which are about 460 miles and 170 miles away, respectively.

Still, Blakeman added, the region has many towns and villages.

"Without a doubt," he said, there will likely be serious damage.

At her home in Irbil, about 170 miles northwest of the epicenter, Lana Serwan said the temblor lasted for a minute.

"Everything was shaking," said Serwan, 35.

Another Irbil resident, Manar Ksebeh, 26, said he was in his 12th-floor apartment when he heard people running and shouting.

So he fled down his building's stairwell.

"I wanted to make sure I wasn't feeling dizzy," Ksebeh said.

Iran's Arak heavy water reactor and production plant containing plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb in hardest hit area of mag 7.3 quake

BBC

The Big Wobble,

13 November, 2017

• Iran has a number of nuclear sites, which are monitored by the global watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
• The earthquake was felt in several western provinces of Iran, but the hardest hit province was Kermanshah, which is where the Arak heavy water reactor and production plant is situated (see map)
• The head of Iranian Red Crescent said more than 70,000 people were in need of emergency shelter.

More than 300 people were killed in Iran when a magnitude 7.3 earthquake jolted the country on Sunday, state media said, and rescuers were searching for dozens trapped under rubble in the mountainous area.

At least six have died in Iraq as well.

State television said more than 336 people were killed in Iran and at least 3,950 were injured.

Local officials said the death toll would rise as search and rescue teams reached remote areas of Iran. The earthquake was felt in several western provinces of Iran, but the hardest hit province was Kermanshah, which is where the Arak heavy water reactor and production plant is situated.

The existence of a heavy-water facility near the town of Arak first emerged with the publication of satellite images by the US-based Institute for Science and International Security in December 2002. Spent fuel from a heavy-water reactor contains plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb, according to the BBC.

More than 236 of the victims were in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah province, about 15 km (10 miles) from the Iraq border.

Iranian state television said the quake had caused heavy damage in some villages where houses were made of earthen bricks.

Rescuers were laboring to find survivors trapped under collapsed buildings.

The quake also triggered landslides that hindered rescue efforts, officials told state television.

At least 14 provinces in Iran had been affected, Iranian media reported.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his condolences on Monday, urging all government agencies to do all they could to help those affected.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured magnitude 7.3.

An Iraqi meteorology official put its magnitude at 6.5 with the epicenter in Penjwin in Sulaimaniyah province in the Kurdistan region, close to the main border crossing with Iran.

Kurdish health officials said at least six people were killed in Iraq and at least 68 injured.

The quake was felt as far south as Baghdad, where many residents rushed from their houses and tall buildings when tremors shook the Iraqi capital.

"I was sitting with my kids having dinner and suddenly the building was just dancing in the air," said Majida Ameer, who ran out of her building in the capital's Salihiya district with her three children.

"I thought at first that it was a huge bomb.

But then I heard everyone around me screaming: 'Earthquake!"' Similar scenes unfolded in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, and across other cities in northern Iraq, close to the quake's epicenter. Electricity was cut off in several Iranian and Iraqi cities, and fears of aftershocks sent thousands of people in both countries out onto the streets and parks in cold weather.

The Iranian seismological center registered around 118 aftershocks and said more were expected.

The head of Iranian Red Crescent said more than 70,000 people were in need of emergency shelter. Hojjat Gharibian was one of the hundreds of homeless Iranian survivors, who was huddled against the cold with his family in Qasr-e Уhirin.

An Iranian oil official said pipelines and refineries in the area remained intact.

Iran sits astride major fault lines and is prone to frequent tremors.

A magnitude 6.6 quake on Dec. 26, 2003, devastated the historic city of Bam, 1,000 km southeast of Tehran, killing about 31,000 people.