TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – A magnitude 5.9 earthquake shook southwestern Iran along the Persian Gulf on Sunday, followed by more than a dozen aftershocks, state TV reported.
At least five people were injured, reports the state-run IRNA news agency IRNA.
State TV shared cell phone photos of cracked and collapsed walls in the area of the port city of Bandar Genaveh, the epicenter of the temple. People stormed the streets of the city when the quake struck, IRNA said.
The video, shot by a bystander at an industrial site near Bandar Genaveh, apparently showed landslides in the nearby foothills. Iranian media broadcast the footage widely.
Three aftershocks of magnitude 4 followed the initial earthquake, the report said, as well as other weaker ones.
The senior vice president of Iran, Eshaq Jahangiri, in a telephone conversation with the provincial governor of Bushehr asked for the immediate care of earthquake victims, the semi-official ISNA reported.
The U.S. Geological Survey called the initial rate an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8. It said its depth was 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).
A magnitude 5 earthquake can cause significant damage. Such shallow earthquakes as Sunday can also cause wider damage.
The quake was about 100 kilometers from Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
ISNA quoted an official at the nuclear power station as saying the earthquake did no damage and there were no interruptions in the operation of the plant. The facility is built to withstand earthquakes up to strength 8.
Iran has major seismic errors and experiences an average of one earthquake per day. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake shook the historic city of Bam, killing 26,000 people.
In a magnitude 7 earthquake that struck western Iran in 2017, more than 600 people were killed and more than 9,000 injured.