3 dead after magnitude 5.7 earthquake hits Iran

Iranian state TV has reported that a strong magnitude 5.7 earthquake has left three people dead and about 200 injured in a remote area in the country’s northeast. The quake that struck late on Saturday jolted the town of Pishqaleh, a farming region close to the Turkmenistan border, with a population of about 2 000 people, some 800km northeast of the capital Tehran. The earthquake led to a power outage and TV reports said the quake damaged several buildings in nearby villages. A magnitude 5.7 quake has the potential to cause considerable damage. Iran is prone to daily quakes as it sits on many major fault lines. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 temblor flattened the historic city of Bam, killing 26 000 people