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Iran-Iraq earthquake passes 300 Death toll 6,000 Injured in powerful 7.3 earthquake

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TEHRAN — Iranians spent the night digging through rubble in a frantic search for survivors after a powerful earthquake struck near the Iraqi border on Sunday evening, killing more than 300 people and injuring thousands more, officials said.

The epicenter of the quake was near Ezgeleh, an Iranian town about 135 miles northeast of Baghdad, and had a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Photographs from the region — a patchwork of farms and home to many Kurds, a large ethnic minority in Iran — and posted on the internet showed collapsed buildings, cars destroyed by rubble and people sleeping in the streets in fear of aftershocks.

At least 341 people were killed and nearly 6,000 people in Iran were injured, according to the state news agency IRNA, and hundreds of people waited in line to donate blood in Tehran in response to a call from the government.

At least eight people were killed on the Iraqi side of the border, according to Dr. Saif al-Badir, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, and at least 535 were hurt.

Iran: 336 people confirmed dead, 3,950 injured, state-run IRINN TV has reported
Northern Iraq: 7 people dead, 300 people injured in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, Rekawt Hama Rasheed, the health minister of the Kurdish Regional Government said.
Rescue efforts: Authorities in Iran and Iraq have initiated rescue operations; Iran has declared three days of mourning.
The earthquake hit late Sunday night with the epicenter across the Iraq-Iran border.
The quake, which reached a depth of 23 km (just over 14 miles) according to the US Geological Survey, was felt across the region with aftershocks hitting Pakistan, Lebanon, Kuwait and Turkey, news agencies in those countries reported.
Iraq’s Meteorological Organization issued a warning on Iraqi State TV urging citizens to stay away from buildings and to refrain from using elevators.