An estimated 70,000 were left without shelter with tremors from the 7.3 magnitude quake being felt as far away as the Mediterranean coast.
Iran’s rural and mountainous western Kermanshah province bore the brunt. By late-morning Iran’s state-run news agency was reporting that 328 people had died, while state television said some 3,950 were injured.
The death toll was certain to rise further.
The quake’s worst damage appeared to be in the town of Sarpol-e-Zahab, in the Zagros Mountains that divide Iran and Iraq. Kokab Fard, 49, a housewife, said she could only flee empty-handed when her apartment complex collapsed.
“Immediately after I managed to get out, the building collapsed,” she said. The town’s main hospital was severely damaged, leaving it struggling to treat hundreds of wounded.
Rescuers trying to reach remote villages where many were feared trapped under collapsed buildings were hampered by landslides blocking roads.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged rescuers and all government agencies to do all they could to help those affected.
The quake hit at 9.18pm local time at a relatively shallow depth of 14.4 miles, and tremors were felt in Turkey, Israel and Kuwait. It killed at least seven people in Iraq and injured 535, all in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, according to Iraq’s Interior Ministry.
In Baghdad, people ran out into the street fearing a massive bomb had exploded. Kerem Kinik, Turkish Red Crescent’s vice president, said that 33 aid trucks were en route to Iraq’s city of Sulaimaniyah, carrying 3,000 tents and heaters, 10,000 beds and blankets as well as food.
