Yeganeh Torbati

DUBAI — A major earthquake struck Iran near the border with Pakistan on Tuesday and an Iranian official said hundreds of people were feared to have been killed.

At least five people were killed and hundreds of houses destroyed in southwestern Pakistan because of the quake, officials said.

Tremors from the 7.8 magnitude quake were also felt in India and the Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar.

"It was the biggest earthquake in Iran in 40 years and we are expecting hundreds of dead," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The US Geological Survey said the quake hit at 10:44 GMT at a depth of 15.2 km (9.4 miles).

People in the city of Zahedan poured into the streets when the earthquake struck, Iran's Fars news agency reported.

All communications in the area have been cut, the Iranian Red Crescent's Mahmoud Mozaffar told state television. Rescue teams have been dispatched to the affected area, he said.

"In the aftermath of this earthquake five evaluation teams from the Khash and Saravan branches were sent to the area to assess damage," Mozaffar said.

The epicenter was in southeast Iran in an area of mountains and desert, 201 km (125 miles) southeast of Zahedan and 250 km northwest of Turbat in Pakistan, USGS said.

The Russian company that built Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant on the Gulf coast has said it sustained no damage. The Fars News Agency also reported that the city of Saravan near the center of the earthquake did not see any serious damage.

On April 9, a powerful 6.3 magnitude quake struck close to Iran's only nuclear power station, killing 37 people, injuring 850 and devastating two villages.

Most of Iran's nuclear-related facilities are located in central Iran or its west, including the Bushehr nuclear power plant on the Gulf coast. A US Institute for Science and International Security map did not show any nuclear-linked facilities in southeastern Iran close to Pakistan.

Sitting on the faultline

Iran sits on major geological faultlines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes, including a 6.6 magnitude quake in 2003 that flattened the city of Bam, in Iran's far southeast, killing more than 25,000 people.

In the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, three women and two children were killed when their mud house collapsed in the district of Panjgur

"The earthquake has killed at least five people in Panjgur," said Ali Imran, an official the Provincial Control Room, a government disaster-response unit in Quetta, the main city in the province.

In the Baluchistan town of Mashkeel, towards the Iran border, several hundred houses also collapsed, according to Mohammed Ashraf, the head of a local health centre. Ashraf added that it was unclear whether there had been any casualties.

In the towns of Mand and Turbat in western Baluchistan, residents reported feeling strong tremors that left cracks in the walls of houses, but there were no initial reports of deaths or injuries.

India, Gulf tremors

The quake also shook tall buildings in India's capital New Delhi, sending people running into the streets, witnesses said. People also evacuated buildings in Qatar and Dubai, residents said. Reports also say tremors were felt in Riyadh, Dammam and Al-Khobar in the Kingdom's Eastern Province, as well as in Kuwait.

"I was working and my work station was shaking," said Viidhu Sekhri, 35, an underwriter at a New Delhi insurance company. "Then it was a bit shaky so we just rushed outside."

Earlier in the day two smaller tremors were felt in India's Himalayan region close to the Chinese border.

An official at India's disaster management authority said the tremors felt in New Delhi and across northern India were because of the earthquake in Iran.

5.6-magnitude quake hits Papua New Guinea

In Papua New Guinea, a 5.6-magnitude earthquake also struck on Tuesday. It hit 125 kilometers (77 miles) southwest of the town of Panguna on Bougainville Island at 8:00 pm local time (10:00 GMT), at a depth of 10 kilometers.



Strong earthquakes are common in the impoverished country, which sits on the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire," a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates.



A giant tsunami in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people near Aitape, on the country's northwest coast. — Agencies