An earthquake of magnitude 6.3 strikes west of Iran

Tehran, Iran –

An earthquake of magnitude 6.3 hit western Iran near the Iraqi border on Sunday night, in the same area where another earthquake killed more than 600 people. Last year. According to preliminary reports, the temblor reportedly injured at least 70 people.

The Sunday night earthquake struck near Sarpol-e Zahab in the Iranian province of Kermanshah, killing nearly half of the earthquake victims of last year and some of whom are still homeless. People fled into the street after the earthquake.

Iranian state television reported the earthquake, while the semi-official Fars news agency said the quake had occurred in seven Iranian provinces. Authorities said six relief teams were immediately deployed after the earthquake ended and the country's army and paramilitary Revolutionary Guard reacted.

Pir Hossein Kolivand, head of the Iranian Emergency Department, said that at least 70 people had been injured. The governor of Kermanshah province, Houshang Bazvand, similarly declared that there were wounded, without giving a figure for the wounded.

The 6.3 earthquake had a depth of 10 km, according to the US Geological Survey. Iran's state television announced a depth of 5 km. Such shallow earthquakes have greater damage.

The earthquake was felt in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Iran is located on major seismic faults and is experiencing an earthquake per day on average. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake devastated the historic city of Bam in southern Iran, killing 26,000 people.

Last year's earthquake near Sarpol-e Zahab, a Kurdish-dominated city, had a magnitude of 7.3. The region, nestled in the Zagros Mountains, largely rebuilt in recent decades after the ruin of Iran and the war in Iraq in the 1980s, has seen many buildings collapse or suffer damage during the earthquake of 2017.

PHOTOS: Hundreds of victims after the November 2017 earthquake at the Iran-Iraq border