27 hurt as quake hits western Iran again

Dozens of people have been hurt in a 4.3-magnitude earthquake that hit another province in Iran’s west, which is still reeling from a deadly tremor.

The temblor jolted Boroujerd County of Lorestan Province on Friday, IRNA reported. Two of the 27 injured were hospitalized and the rest treated as out-patients, said Provincial Governor Ali Kourani.

The quake’s epicenter was located at 10 kilometers (32,000 feet) below the earth’s surface in the county’s Haji Abad and Zereshkeh villages.

The incident also afflicted some material damage, mostly to the two villages, Kourani added.

The Seismological Center at Tehran University’s Geophysics Institute said seven quakes had hit Boroujerd since Thursday.

As many as 444 people were killed after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit Kermanshah, another western province, on November 11. The natural disaster injured 12,386 others, and damaged at least 31,000 residential buildings in the province either majorly or in part.

Aftershocks continue to rattle the affected areas, with 808 tremors recorded so far following the initial earthquake.

Kermanshah’s Meteorological Bureau, meanwhile, said temperatures are expected to fall as much as 10 °C (50 °F) below zero in 13 counties in the province, prompting concern that this could complicate relief operations.

Reconstruction work, however, has started in quake-hit areas in the province’s Gilan-e Qarb County.

3 killed amid flooding

Separately, it was reported that flooding caused by autumnal downpours had battered seven provinces across the country, namely Bushehr, Khuzestan, Fars, and Hormuzgan in the south, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari in the southwest, Ilam in the west, and Golestan in the north.

The flooding has killed two, said Morteza Salimi, the head of the Islamic Republic’s Relief and Rescue Organization, adding that one had also been killed by lightning strike.