Dozens killed in Iranian tremor

A strong earthquake hit western Iran yesterday, killing at least 66 people and devastating villages, state media reported.

The official IRNA news agency, quoting a Lorestan medical official, said 988 were injured in the quake of 6 magnitude in mostly rural Lorestan Province, west of the capital Tehran.

Some were dug out of the rubble of buildings alive. But the death toll was expected to rise, the head of the disaster control committee in the Lorestan governor's office said.

About villages suffered 40 to 100 percent damage, Lorestan provincial Governor Mohammad Reza Mohseni Sani was quoted on state television as saying.

"By nightfall we will be able to give an accurate number of the casualties and the damage inflicted by the quake," he said.

Strong on Thursday night might have helped keep the toll down because many had left their homes and taken to the streets well before the big earthquake hit on yesterday morning.

The tremor struck at 4:47am following two others measuring 4.7 and 5.1, Iranian television quoted the national seismological institute as saying.

The tremor was felt as far away as Hamedan in the province of the same name to the north.

Iranian showed brick houses flattened, with bent iron girders poking out, and mud buildings reduced to mounds of dust. An earth mover lifted broken masonry from one building, while residents scrabbled through rubble with their bare hands.

Television from the area showed families in the cold morning air huddled around fires next to their wrecked homes. Officials said telephone lines, electricity and gas supplies had been cut.

Hospitals full in Doroud and Boroujerd, the two main cities near the epicenter, state radio reported.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered emergency aid sent to the quake zone, IRNA said. It included sniffer dogs to search for survivors and two helicopters, state television said.

In Geneva, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, using information from the Iranian Red Crescent, said rescue teams had been mobilized. The US also offered humanitarian assistance.

Survivors in urgent need of food stuff, blankets and medical supplies, interior ministry public relations director Mojtaba Mir-Abdollahi said, but said there was "no need for international aid."

"Currently the hospitals of the province are packed with injured, and the wounded are now being sent to neighboring provinces," Mir-Abdollahi said.

Iran astride several major faults in the earth's crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes.