LONDON: A magnitude earthquake struck the Iranian southern city of Bushehr on Sunday, 250 kilometers from the Iraqi border, the Iraqi General Authority for Meteorology and Seismic Monitoring announced.
The authority said the tremor recorded 5.6 on the Richter scale, and was felt by residents in Basra, Iraqi News Agency reported.
“We call on citizens to take caution, stay away from rumors and false news, and to abide by the seismic authority’s instructions commandments,” it added.
The quake struck at a depth of 11 kilometers, with the epicenter near the town of Khesht, at around 7 PM (1430 GMT). Several weaker aftershocks followed, according to Iran’s seismological center.
The United States Geological Survey put the initial tremor at 5.4-magnitude.
There were no reports of casualties or damage, about two hours after the quake.
Rescue and survey teams were sent to the area and hospitals put on alert, Fars province’s head of crisis management Rahim Azadi told state television.
Iran sits astride the boundaries of several major tectonic plates and experiences frequent seismic activity.
In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude quake in the southeast levelled the ancient mud-brick city of Bam and killed at least 31,000 people.
Iran’s deadliest was a 7.4-magnitude quake in 1990 that killed 40,000 people in the north, injured 300,000 and left half a million homeless.
(With AFP)
Magnitude 5.6 earthquake recorded in Iraq's Basra - Iraqi news agency
https://arab.news/6wm53
Magnitude 5.6 earthquake recorded in Iraq's Basra - Iraqi news agency
US will prevent Iranian nuclear bomb ‘one way or the other’
- Implicit threat of miitary action but Tehran remains optimistic of deal
TEHRAN, PARIS: The US will prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons “one way or the other,” US Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump “believes firmly we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran,” Wright said as the International Energy Agency met in Paris. “They’ve been very clear about what they would do with nuclear weapons. It’s entirely unacceptable.
“So one way or the other, we are going to end, deter Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon.”
Despite the implicit threat of military action, which Trump has said is not off the table amid a massive increase in US military forces in the region, Iranian officials remain optimistic that an agreement can be reached after talks in Geneva on Tuesday that Tehran described as “constructive.”
In a call with Rafael Grossi, head of the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran said was drafting a framework for future talks with Washington. Iran’s focus was on drafting an initial and coherent framework to advance talks with the US, he said. However, US Vice President J.D. Vance said Tehran had not yet acknowledged all of Washington’s red lines.
Earlier on Wednesday Reza Najafi, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN nuclear agency in Vienna, met Grossi and the ambassadors of China and Russia “to exchange views” on the forthcoming session of the agency's board of governors and “developments related to Iran’s nuclear program,” Iran’s mission in Vienna said.
Tehran has suspended some cooperation with the agency and restricted the watchdog's inspectors from accessing sites bombed by Israel and the US during a 12-day war in June. It accuses the UN body of bias and of failing to condemn the strikes.
