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Two New Quakes Rattle Iran, At Least One Dead


FILE - Vehicles are stuck in a traffic jam in Tehran, Dec. 21, 2017, after a magnitude 5.2 earthquake jolted a town near Iran's capital hours earlier.
FILE - Vehicles are stuck in a traffic jam in Tehran, Dec. 21, 2017, after a magnitude 5.2 earthquake jolted a town near Iran's capital hours earlier.

Iranian news agencies are reporting one person has died and at least 56 are slightly injured after two earthquakes hit separate areas of the country.

The state-run IRNA news agency on Wednesday attributed the death to a heart attack after a 4.2-magnitude quake shook the city of Alborz, about 50 kilometers west of the capital, Tehran.

The ISNA news agency said a 5.1-magnitude quake hit the village of Hojedk in Kerman Province, about 700 kilometers south of Tehran the same day. There was no immediate word of casualties or damage.

Iran is prone to near-daily earthquakes, as it sits on major fault lines.

A temblor of magnitude 5.2 rocked Kerman Province on December 21, injuring at least 23 people. A day earlier, two people were killed by a similar-magnitude quake near Tehran.

Kerman Province was also hit on December 12, when it was jolted by a 6.2-magnitude quake, injuring at least 18 people and damaging about 20 houses.

In 2003, some 31,000 people were killed when a magnitude 6.6 quake hit the province and flattened the historic city of Bam.

This report contains some material from Reuters, AP and IFPnews.com.

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