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Iran: Rescue Operations End, Relief Op Underway

Tehran (November 14, 2017): Iran announced ending of the that rescue operations in areas hit by a powerful weekend earthquake that killed at least 450 people and injured thousands of others.

The 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck villages and towns in the mountainous area of Kermanshah province that borders Iraq yesterday while many people were at home asleep. At least 14 provinces in Iran were affected.

According to foreign news agency Iranian State television said thousands were huddling in makeshift camps while many others spent a second night in the open for fear of more tremors to come after some 193 aftershocks.

Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his condolences on Monday and called on government agencies to do all they could to help those affected.

Iranian police, the elite Revolutionary Guards and its affiliated Basij militia forces were dispatched to affected areas on Sunday night. President Hassan Rouhani will visit the area on Tuesday, state TV said.

Hospitals in nearby provinces took in many of the injured, state television said, airing footage of survivors waiting to be treated. Hundreds of critically injured people were dispatched to hospitals in Tehran.

Iran’s Red Crescent said emergency shelters had been given to thousands of homeless people, but lack of water and electricity as well as blocked roads in some areas hindered aid supply efforts.

“People in some villages are still in dire need of food, water and shelter,” governor of Qasr-e Shirin Faramarz Akbari told state television.

More than 30,000 houses in the area were damaged and at least two villages were completely destroyed, Iranian authorities said.

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