328 killed, over 2,500 injured as earthquake strikes near Iran-Iraq border

TIL Desk/World/Sulaimaniyah/ At least 328 people were killed and over 2,500 people were injured when a 7.3-magnitude earthquake shook the mountainous Iran-Iraq border triggering landslides that were hindering rescue efforts, officials said today.

Footage posted on Twitter showed panicked people fleeing a building in Sulaimaniyah, northern Iraq, as windows shattered at the moment the quake struck late yesterday, while images from the nearby town of Darbandikhan showed major walls and concrete structures had collapsed.

Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said 129 were dead in an updated toll posted on its website, while the official news agency said some 300 people had been injured, adding that the toll was expected to rise. Six others were reported dead on the Iraq side of the border.

“We are in the process of setting up three emergency relief camps,” said, the deputy governor of Iran’s Kermanshah province. The quake hit 30 kilometres southwest of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan at around 9.20 pm, when many people would have been at home, the US Geological Survey said.