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Strong Quake Hits Iran-Pakistan Border, Kills at Least 5


A major earthquake has struck southeastern Iran and neighboring Pakistan, killing at least five people and injuring many others.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the quake's magnitude at 7.8, with an epicenter near the Iranian cities of Khash and Saravan.

Iranian state media reported a lower magnitude of 7.5 for Tuesday's quake, which struck at 3:14 p.m. Iran time.

Pakistani authorities said hundreds of homes collapsed in the province of Balochistan, bordering Iran. They said five bodies have been recovered from the rubble.



Iranian state media initially reported 40 deaths in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan before retracting the figure.

The quake also shook the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Karachi, hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter.

A British woman working in Karachi told VOA the Pakistani commercial capital was not badly affected.



"We were in a room and I was talking to somebody and he suddenly said what is that? And then I realized his chair was shaking, and then everybody started leaving the building, we all went outside. The cars were all shaking, it must have lasted, oh I think about a minute, until the cars stopped shaking. And we stood out and waited because obviously there was some concern that there might be a bigger earthquake afterwards. But as far as I could see there was no damage here, everybody is quite used to these kind of drills, and everyone evacuated safely, waited for a couple of minutes then we all went back inside."



Tremors also were felt as far away as the Indian capital, New Delhi, and several Gulf cities, where some office workers briefly evacuated buildings as a precaution.

Iraq is prone to frequent earthquakes as it sits on several major fault lines. Last Tuesday , a quake with a magnitude of around 6 hit southwestern Iran near the city of Bushehr, killing at least 37 people.
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