Khoy Earthquake: 104 Injured, 1,700 Houses Damaged
104 people were injured in a 5.7 magnitude earthquake in the Qtur district of Khoy, with 19 of them hospitalized. Residential units in 43 villages have been destroyed between 10 to 100 percent. The most damage occurred to adobe and foothill houses in “Makhin” or “Kotan Abad”.
The dean of Khoy School of Medical Sciences says 104 people were injured in two earthquakes that occurred in the morning and evening of the fourth day of Esfand, mostly suffering from bone fractures. Of this number, 85 people were treated on an outpatient basis, while the rest are hospitalized. The condition of two of the injured is reported as critical.
The first Khoy earthquake occurred at 9:22 AM in the vicinity of Qtur city. People in Urmia, Tabriz, Asko, Salmas, and Sahand also felt the tremor. At 7:30 PM, another earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale shook “Zarabad”.
These two earthquakes cut off electricity and communication networks in villages and disabled parts of Khoy’s fiber optic network. The governor of West Azerbaijan announced that since Monday morning, electricity and mobile phone networks and telecommunications services have been restored to earthquake-affected areas.
Provincial officials report the death of 500 livestock and 10 to 100 percent damage to houses in 43 villages of Salmas and Khoy. Experts from the West Azerbaijan Housing Foundation reported at least 1,700 destroyed houses. The greatest damage occurred in eight villages in the region, including “Makhin” and “Kotan Abad”.
The village of Makhin, located in the Zarabad district, has 300 adobe and foothill houses, and those that have not been reinforced have suffered major damage. Eighty percent of the houses in Kotan Abad of Qtur, which have wooden roofs and are made of brick and clay, have been destroyed.
The CEO of the Red Crescent of West Azerbaijan says 775 tents, three thousand blankets, and a thousand food packages have been sent to Qtur, and 325 relief workers are also present on site.
Simultaneously, IRNA reported clashes between rescuers and residents in one of the affected villages. IRNA writes that a Red Crescent relief team had gone to assess the extent of damage, but residents beat them for not carrying relief supplies: “Hamid Dehqan, former head of Red Crescent in Salmas, was injured on the head and transferred to Urmia Hospital.”
Over the past month, Qtur, near the Turkish border, has witnessed more than 30 earthquakes with a magnitude of less than 4.5 on the Richter scale. Across the border, however, earthquake damage was greater, leaving eight dead in the city of “Bash Qaleh” in Van Province.
Source: DW
