The quake struck Bastak county, about 1,200 kilometres south of the capital, Tehran. Many buildings of the town were damaged and rescue workers were on the scene. One person was killed while more than 30 have been injured in the earthquake. Several aftershocks were felt in the region populated by about 50,000 residents.
Iran sits on a series of seismic fault lines and experiences one slight quake a day on an average. Last year, on 10th of April at least 37 people were reported killed and 850 injured in an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale in southeast of Bushehr near Persian Gulf. In 2003, some 26,000 people were killed by a magnitude 6.6 quake that flattened the historic southeastern Iranian city of Bam.
Photograph by Martin Luff