Twin Iranian earthquakes leave 300 dead

Two earthquakes that struck Iran on 11 August have left 306 dead, with more than 3000 people reported injured. The country continues to experience aftershocks.

The northwest of Iran was hit by a 6.4-magnitude quake at 16:54 local time (12:23 GMT), 23 kilometres southwest of the city of Ahar and 58 kilometres northeast of Tabriz. Some 11 minutes later, a 6.3-magnitude quake struck ? 10?kilometres to the west.

The worst effects were felt in small villages, where houses are usually made from concrete blocks or mud bricks. No deaths have been reported among the 1.7 million inhabitants of the city of Tabriz, where houses are more substantially built.

The two earthquakes each occurred at a depth of around 9.9 kilometres 300?km east of the border between the Eurasian and Arabian tectonic plates. That places them too far from the plate boundary to readily locate the faults responsible. But an initial analysis by the US Geological Survey suggests they were a result of movement along a strike-slip fault ? where neighbouring blocks move horizontally past one another ? travelling in a roughly east-west direction within the Eurasian plate.

Iran is home to several major geological faults, making it prone to seismic activity. Most of the country's earthquakes are caused by collisions between the Eurasian and Arabian tectonic plates, as the Arabian plate moves 26 mm per year north towards the Eurasian plate.

Since the turn of the century, Iran has suffered six earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 6. The most serious occurred in December 2003, destroying the ancient city of Bam and killing an estimated 31,000 people.

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