Iran’s President to Visit Quake-Hit Areas
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will travel to the western province of Kermanshah on Tuesday in the wake of a massive earthquake that has killed more than 330 people.
The president will go to Kermanshah on Tuesday morning to visit the areas worst hit by the massive earthquake and get updates on the rescue operations.
So far, 348 Iranian people have been pronounced dead in the quake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, whose epicenter was near Halabjah, southeast of Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah.
Some 4,050 other Iranians have been injured in the quake, which occurred on Sunday night.
Spokesperson for the National Disaster Management Organization of Iran has expressed the hope that rescue operations in the quake-hit areas would finish by the end of Monday.
236 people have been killed only in Sarpol-e-Zahab, a city in the western province of Kermanshah hit hardest by the quake. Other victims have died in the cities of Qasre-e-Shirin, Eslamabad-e-Gharb, Kermanshah, Dallahoo, Salas-e-Babajani, and Javanroud.
More than 130 aftershocks, some even measuring greater than 5 on the Richter scale, have rumbled through western Iran since last night.
In a message on Monday morning, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei ordered all Iranian officials to rush to help the large number of people affected by the earthquake, and particularly rescue those trapped under rubble in the very first hours after the disaster.
