6 hurt after Moderate Quake Jolts Iran

A moderate earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale jolted a small town in east Iran last night. The quake injured six people and caused damages, Iran’s state TV said. Tuesday’s report said the quake hit the sparsely populated area on Monday. It damaged buildings, roads, water canals as well as the nearby dam in the town of Ravar, some 460 miles (750 kilometers) southeast of the capital Tehran. The TV said the quake also damaged homes in some surrounding rural areas. Iran is located on seismic fault lines and is prone to earthquakes, experiencing at least one slight quake a day on average. In 2003, some 26,000 people were killed by a magnitude 6.6 quake that flattened the historic southeastern city of Bam.