The first tremors shook the earth around two o’clock in the morning, surprising many inhabitants in their sleep. On the night of Saturday July 2, an earthquake of magnitude 6 at a depth of 16 kilometers hit the province of Hormozgan, in the south of Iran, particularly testing the village of Sayeh Khosh.
According to the latest figures from the state news agency Irna, five residents would have lost their lives, and 19 others would have been injured in the disaster. State television estimates the number of injured at 49, while two other aftershocks of the earthquake occurred two hours later with a magnitude of 5.7 and 6 – at a depth of 10 km – according to analyzes by the American Seismological Institute (USGS).
“Reception of victims”
Material damage is also deplored. Many residential buildings collapsed in Sayeh Khosh, and the town was plunged into darkness in the wake of a power outage. In Bandar Abbas, capital of the province where half a million people live, people spent the rest of the night on the streets and long queues formed outside gas stations, according to state television . Electricity was also cut in nearly 30 villages located in the affected areas, according to the same source.
Search and rescue operations are almost over, the country’s Red Crescent was quoted by local television as saying. “We are focusing on welcoming the victims of the earthquake”, underlined the governor of the province Mehdi Dousti, specifying that 50% of the village of Sayeh Khosh had been destroyed. The tremor also occurred in an area 100 kilometers southwest of the port of Bandar Abbas, according to the USGS.
strong seismic activity
A person had already been killed in November 2021 in the province of Hormozgan, then hit by earthquakes of magnitude 6.4 and 6.3. Located on the edge of several tectonic plates, Iran is a zone of strong seismic activity. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake partially destroyed the city of Bam (southeast) and killed at least 31,000 people. But the deadliest earthquake in Iran remains that of magnitude 7.4 which occurred in 1990, which killed nearly 40,000 people in the north of the Islamic Republic.