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By NASSER KARIMI and JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – A magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit western Iran near the Iraqi border on Sunday night, killing more than 500 people and fleeing residents. in the street, announced authorities.
The earthquake hit Sunday near Sarpol-e Zahab in the Iranian province of Kermanshah, the epicenter of an earthquake that killed more than 600 people last year and where some are always homeless.
Dr. Mahmoud Reza Moradi, director of the Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, told Iranian television that 513 people had been injured. Most of the wounds seemed minor; The semi-official ISNA news agency reported that only 33 people were to be hospitalized.
Authorities said dozens of rescue teams were immediately deployed after the earthquake ended and that the country's army and its paramilitary revolutionary guard reacted.
Authorities reported damage to buildings in the city and rural areas of Kermanshah, as well as on some roads. The shaker also destroyed power lines and caused power outages at night when temperatures were around 46 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius).
The earthquake struck just after 8 pm in Iran, meaning that most were still awake at the time and able to flee quickly.
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 until Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, about 175 kilometers to the southwest.
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.
The earthquake of last year, near Sarpol-e Zahab, a Kurdish-majority city, had a magnitude of 7.3 and injured more than 9,000 people. 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.
Sarpol-e Zahab, some 520 kilometers southwest of Tehran, the Iranian capital, suffered half the damage caused by the 2017 earthquake.
Gambrell reported in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
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