Quake wallops Iran, Pakistan

TEHRAN, Iran - An earthquake flattened homes and offices on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border Tuesday, rattling buildings as far away as New Delhi and Dubai and killing dozens of people, including 34 in one Pakistani town.

The overall death toll became clouded after conflicting reports from Iran.

At first, Iran’s state-run Press TV said at least 40 people died - which would push the two-nation tally to 74. But it later retreated from its account, and other Iranian outlets stepped in with a less dire picture.

Despite the conflicting reports on the Iranian side, a Pakistani military official said at least 34 were killed in a single village in Pakistan, and 80 were injured in the country. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with Pakistan military policy.

Up to 1,000 mud homes were damaged, according to Pakistan Television. Pakistani news channels showed buildings shaking in the southern city of Karachi, where people in panic evacuated offices and homes.

A Pakistani policeman, Azmatullah Regi, said nearly three dozen homes and shops collapsed in one village in the Mashkel area, which was the hardest hit by the quake. Rescue workers pulled the bodies of a couple and their three children, ages 5 to 15, from the rubble of one house, he said.

The Pakistani army ordered paramilitary troops to assist with rescue operations and provide medical treatment. Additional troops were being moved to the area, and army helicopters were mobilized to carry medical staff members, tents, medicine and other relief items.

The discrepancies in the Iranian reports could not be immediately reconciled, but it was the second quake to hit Iran in less than week and analysts said authorities could be seeking to downplay casualties.

Press TV initially said at least 40 people were killed on the Iranian side, but later removed the figure from its website and news scroll. Other state-controlled outlets, including the official IRNA news agency, mentioned no deaths and up to 27 injuries, quoting a local official.

The website of Tehran Geophysics Center said the quake, with a magnitude of at least 7.7, lasted 40 seconds and was the strongest in more than 50 years in one of the world’s most seismically active areas.

Press TV said Tuesday’s quake was centered near Saravan, about 26 miles from the Pakistani border. The U.S. Geological Survey put the preliminary magnitude at 7.8 and at a depth of nine miles.

Rowena Lohman, an earthquake physics expert at Cornell University, said some unusual geophysics may have prevented much greater damage and casualties.

“Today’s earthquake in southeastern Iran was large but fairly deep, which reduces the expected level of damage relative to a shallower earthquake of the same magnitude,” she was quoted as saying in a statement.

In 2003, some 26,000 people were killed by a magnitude 6.6 quake that flattened the historic southeastern Iranian city of Bam.

A magnitude 6.1 temblor struck less than a week ago near Bushehr, on Iran’s Persian Gulf coast, killing at least 37 people and raising calls for greater international safety inspectors at Iran’s lone nuclearreactor nearby.

Iran’s nuclear chief Fereidoun Abbasi said there was no damage to the Bushehr reactor and invited U.N. inspectors to visit, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported. Abbasi repeated the statement issued after last week’s quake: The Bushehr plant was built to withstand quakes up to magnitude 8, which is considerably stronger than Tuesday’s temblor.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security also called any damage to Bushehr “unlikely” from the latest quake, which is nearly 600 miles away.

The quake was felt over a vast area from New Delhi - about 900 miles from the epicenter - to Gulf cities that have some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers, including the record 2,717 -foot Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Officials ordered temporary evacuations from the Burj Khalifa and some other high-rises as a precaution.

In Iran, the Red Crescent said it was facing a “complicated emergency situation” in the area with villages scattered over desolate hills and valleys. Information for this article was contributed by Abdul Sattar of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 04/17/2013

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