Rescuers searched the rubble of toppled buildings for bodies as the death toll from a powerful earthquake that struck a border region on Sunday, November 12 between Iran and Iraq climbed to at least 530.
The province of Kermanshah in western Iran was hardest-hit by Sunday’s magnitude-7.3 earthquake. All of Iran’s fatalities occurred there. Seven people died in Iraq.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported the new death toll Tuesday, November 14 and said 7,460 people were injured.
Rescuers and local residents stood on top of the ruins of apartment complexes in the Kurdish town of Sarpol-e-Zahab in Kermanshah, searching for bodies and carrying them away with blankets.
Casualties were taken to cities including the capital Tehran as the army set up field hospitals in Sarpol-e-Zahab. The local hospital was badly damaged.
Newly-homeless quake victims slept outside and huddled around makeshift fires for warmth. Mohammad Ali Monshizadeh, a spokesman for Kermanshah’s forensic department, said as many as 150 people could have been buried by their relatives in remote villages and were not included in the official death toll, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
In Iraq, 535 people were injured, all in the country’s northern, semiautonomous Kurdish region, the country’s Interior Ministry said.
The quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey said was centered about 19 miles from the eastern Iraqi city of Halabja, caused skyscrapers in Dubai to sway and could be felt 660 miles away on the Mediterranean coast.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited Kermanshah province Tuesday to see the damage and offer support to the victims.
“This was a pain for all Iranians. Representing the nation of Iran, I offer my condolences to the people of Kermanshah, and tell them that all of us are behind Kermanshah,” he said, according to a statement on the presidency’s website.
“It is God who holds in His hands the destiny of souls. He will not always be mocked; He will not always be trifled with. Already His judgments are in the land. Fierce and awful tempests leave destruction and death in their wake. The devouring fire lays low the desolate forest and the crowded city. Storm and shipwreck await those who journey upon the deep. Accident and calamity threaten all who travel upon the land. Hurricanes, earthquakes, sword and famine, follow in quick succession. Yet the hearts of men are hardened. They recognize not the warning voice of God. They will not flee to the only refuge from the gathering storm.” Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, page 234.