Northeast Iran hit by almost 6-magnitude quake

An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 shook northeastern Iran today, but there was little damage and no casualties, state television reported.

The earthquake was centered on an area near Sangan, a town of about 10,000 people near the border with Afghanistan, at a shallow depth of 8 km.

“Our near-final report is that about 14 villages have had very limited damage," head of rescue at Iran’s Red Crescent Morteza Salimi told the television.

“There are no casualties and most of the damage is walls collapsing in places where livestock is kept,” Reuters cited him as saying.