TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – A 5.9-magnitude earthquake shook southwestern Iran along the Persian Gulf on Sunday, followed by more than a dozen aftershocks, state television reported.
At least five people were injured, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported.
State television distributed images from the mobile phone with cracked and collapsed walls in the area of the port city of Bandar Genaveh, the epicenter of the quake. People rushed through the streets of the city while earthquakes took place, IRNA said.
The video filmed by a spectator at an industrial site near Bandar Genaveh appeared to show landslides at nearby feet. Iranian media has widely rebroadcast the footage.
Three magnitude 4 aftershocks followed the initial quake, the report said, as well as weaker ones.
Iran’s senior vice president Eshaq Jahangiri, in a phone call with provincial governor Bushehr, called for immediate care for the victims of the quake, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
The US geological study called the quake a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. It is said that its depth was 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).
A magnitude 5 earthquake can cause considerable damage. Shallow earthquakes, such as those on Sunday, can lead to more damage.
The quake was about 100 kilometers from Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
ISNA quoted a nuclear power plant official as saying the quake had caused no damage and no disruption to the plant’s operations. The facility was built to withstand earthquakes up to magnitude 8.
Iran faces major seismic defects and has an average earthquake per day. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake shook the historic city of Bam, killing 26,000 people.
A magnitude 7 earthquake that struck western Iran in 2017 killed more than 600 people and injured more than 9,000.