Earthquake shakes southern Iran Posted at: 07/21/2010 12:05 AM By: (AP) TEHRAN, Iran – State TV says a strong earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 has shaken southern Iran, injuring 15 people. Iranian state TV says the quake on Wednesday shook Ashkenan, a region near Lamerd in southern Iran. The TV report quotes Tehran University’s Geophysics Institute as saying that seven small quakes with magnitudes of 3.5 to 5.2 jolted the region following the main quake. No other details were immediately available. A earthquake struck the Gulf of Eilat 70 kilometers south of the city on Thursday afternoon. The earthquake registered 4.5 on the Richter scale and was felt in the early afternoon by Eilat residents, although it did not cause any casualties or damage. This earthquake joins the annals of history of quakes in Israel. In April this year, a quake measured 3 on the Richter scale near to Kfar Hasidim. Three weeks previously a quake hit the north also measuring 3 on the scale. In November 1995, one Israeli died of a heart attack, and 13 people were hospitalized when an earthquake ranging between 5.7 and 7.2 on the Richter scale struck the Red Sea region. That quake affected Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. That tremor, caused by shifts in the tectonic plates of the Syrian-African Rift, was possibly the most powerful earthquake in Israel since 1927, when some 400 people were killed in Jericho. Iran is located on seismic fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. It experiences ……

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