Rescuers hunt for survivors of deadly earthquake near Iran-Iraq border

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People sit on the rubble of a destroyed house after an earthquake in the city of Darbandikhan, northern Iraq, on Monday, Nov. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
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People walk next to a destroyed house after an earthquake, in the city of Darbandikhan, northern Iraq, on Monday, Nov. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
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In this photo provided by Tasnim News Agency, relatives weep over the bodies of earthquake victims, in Sarpol-e-Zahab, in western Iran, on Monday, Nov. 13, 2017. (Farzad Menati/Tasnim News Agency via AP)
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Survivors sit in front of buildings damaged by an earthquake, in Sarpol-e-Zahab, western Iran, on Monday, Nov. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Omid Salehi)
Updated 13 November 2017
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Rescuers hunt for survivors of deadly earthquake near Iran-Iraq border

TEHRAN: Teams of Iranian rescuers dug through rubble in a hunt for survivors Monday after a major earthquake struck the Iran-Iraq border, killing at least 415 people and injuring thousands.
The 7.3-magnitude quake rocked a border area 30 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan at around 9:20 p.m. (1820 GMT) on Sunday, the US Geological Survey said.
Many people would have been at home when the quake hit in Iran’s western province of Kermanshah, where authorities said it killed at least 407 people and injured 6,700.
Across the border in more sparsely populated areas of Iraq, the health ministry said eight people had died and several hundred were injured.
Iraq’s Red Crescent reported nine dead and more than 400 injured.
As dusk approached on Monday, tens of thousands of Iranians were forced to sleep outside in the cold for a second night as authorities scrambled to provide them with aid.
Some had spent Sunday night outdoors after fleeing their homes in the mountainous cross-border region, huddling around fires at dawn as authorities sent in help.
“People’s immediate needs are firstly tents, water and food,” said the head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari.
“Newly constructed buildings... held up well, but the old houses built with earth were totally destroyed,” he told state television during a visit to the affected region.
Hundreds of ambulances and dozens of army helicopters reportedly joined the rescue effort after Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the government and armed forces to mobilize “all their means.”
VIDEO: Iranian rescuers search for quake survivors
Like other foreign media organizations, AFP had not received authorization to visit the scene of the disaster on Monday.
Officials said they were setting up relief camps for the displaced.
Iran’s emergency services chief Pir Hossein Koolivand said landslides had cut off roads to affected villages, impeding the access of rescue workers.
But by late afternoon, officials said all the roads in Kermanshah province had been re-opened, although the worst-affected town of Sar-e Pol-e Zahab remained without electricity, said state television.
Officials said 22,000 tents, 52,000 blankets and tons of food and water had been distributed.
The official IRNA news agency said 30 Red Crescent teams had been sent to the quake zone.
After initially pinning the quake’s epicenter inside Iraq, the USGS then placed it across the border in Iran on Monday morning.
Iran’s Sar-e Pol-e Zahab, home to some 85,000 people close to the border, was the worst hit with at least 236 dead.
At dawn, buildings in the town stood disfigured, their former facades now rubble on crumpled vehicles.



In an open space away from wrecked housing blocks, men and women, some wrapped in blankets, huddled around a campfire.
Iranian media reported that a woman and her baby were pulled alive from the rubble.
The towns of Eslamabad and Qasr-e Shirin were also affected, while the tremor shook several western Iranian cities including Tabriz.
Some 259,000 people live in the region, according to the most recent census.
State television showed tents, blankets and food being distributed in areas struck by the temblor.
In neighboring Dalahoo County, several villages were totally destroyed, an official told Tasnim agency.
In Iraq, the health ministry said the quake had killed seven people in the northern province of Sulaimaniyah and one in Diyala province to its south.
More than 500 people were injured in both provinces and the nearby province of Kirkuk.
Footage posted on Twitter showed panicked people fleeing a building in Sulaimaniyah as windows shattered at the moment the quake struck. Images from the nearby town of Darbandikhan showed walls and concrete structures that had collapsed.
Nizar Abdullah spent the night with neighbors sifting through the ruins of a two-story home next door after it crumbled into concrete debris.
“There were eight people inside,” the 34-year-old Iraqi Kurd said.
Some family members managed to escape, but “neighbors and rescue workers pulled out the mother and one of the children dead from the rubble.”
The quake, which struck at a relatively shallow depth of 23 kilometers, was felt for about 20 seconds in Baghdad, and for longer in other provinces of Iraq, AFP journalists said.
Iraqi health authorities said they treated dozens of people in the aftermath, mostly for shock.
It was also felt in southeastern Turkey, an AFP correspondent said. In the town of Diyarbakir, residents were reported to have fled their homes.
Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Syria offered their condolences, while Pope Francis called the quake a “tragedy” and expressed his “prayerful solidarity” with victims.
The quake struck along a 1,500-kilometer fault line between the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates, which extends through western Iran and northeastern Iraq.
The area sees frequent seismic activity.
In 1990, a 7.4-magnitude quake in northern Iran killed 40,000 people, injured 300,000 and left half a million homeless, reducing dozens of towns and nearly 2,000 villages to rubble in just seconds.
Thirteen years later, a catastrophic quake flattened swathes of the ancient southeastern Iranian city of Bam, killing at least 31,000.
Iran has experienced at least two major quake disasters since, one in 2005 that killed more than 600 and another in 2012 that left some 300 dead.


Turkiye’s foreign minister visits Athens to help mend ties between the regional rivals

Updated 7 sec ago
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Turkiye’s foreign minister visits Athens to help mend ties between the regional rivals

ATHENS, Greece: Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan arrived Friday in Athens for meetings with his Greek counterpart as part of efforts to ease tension between the two neighbors and regional rivals.
Both NATO members, Greece and Turkiye have been at loggerheads for decades over a long series of issues, including volatile maritime boundary disputes that have twice led them to the brink of war. The two have renewed a diplomatic push for over a year to improve ties.
“Step by step, we have achieved a level of trust so that we can discuss issues with sincerity and prevent crises,” Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said in an interview with Turkiye’s Hurriyet newspaper published Thursday.
The meeting between the two foreign ministers follows a series of high-profile talks between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as part of a relation-mending initiative launched in 2023.
Officials in Athens are expected to raise concerns about rising illegal migration, as Greece has seen an uptick in arrivals. And, despite deep disagreements on Israel and fighting in the Middle East, both foreign ministers are also expected to explore ways to improve regional stability.
The talks will help set the stage for a Greece-Turkiye high-level cooperation council planned for early 2025 in Ankara, Turkiye.

Turkiye’s Erdogan hopes Trump will tell Israel to “stop,” NTV reports

Updated 9 min 57 sec ago
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Turkiye’s Erdogan hopes Trump will tell Israel to “stop,” NTV reports

ANKARA: Turkiye’s President Tayyip Erdogan said that he hoped US President-elect Donald Trump will tell Israel to “stop” the attacks and halting arms support to Israel could be a good start, broadcaster NTV reported on Friday.
Trump’s presidency will seriously affect political and military balances in the Middle East region, Erdogan was quoted as telling reporters on his flight back to Turkiye from Budapest, where he attended a European Political Community summit. 


Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead women and children, UN rights office says

Updated 15 min 55 sec ago
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Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead women and children, UN rights office says

  • UN Human Rights Office: Systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law
  • The youngest victim whose death was verified by UN monitors was a one-day-old boy, and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman

GENEVA: The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday nearly 70 percent of the fatalities it has verified in the Gaza war were women and children, and condemned what it called a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
The UN count covers the first seven months of the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip that began more than a year ago.
The 8,119 victims verified by the UN Rights Office in that seven-month period is considerably lower than the toll of over 43,000 provided by Palestinian health authorities for the full 13 months of conflict.
But the UN breakdown of the victims’ age and gender backs the Palestinian assertion that women and children represent a large portion of those killed in the war.
This finding indicates “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality,” the UN rights office said in a statement accompanying the 32-page report.
“It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.
Israel did not immediately comment on the report’s findings.
Israel’s military, which began its offensive in response to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in which Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and seized more than 250 hostages, says it takes care to avoid harming civilians in Gaza.
It has said approximately one civilian has been killed for every fighter, a ratio it blames on Hamas, saying the Palestinian militant group uses civilian facilities. Hamas has denied using civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as human shields.
YOUNGEST VICTIM AGED ONE DAY
The youngest victim whose death was verified by UN monitors was a one-day-old boy, and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman, the report said.
Overall, children represented 44 percent of the victims, with children aged five-nine representing the single biggest age category, followed by those aged 10-14, and then those aged up to and including four.
This broadly reflects the enclave’s demographics, which the report said reflected an apparent failure to take precautions to avoid civilian losses.
It showed that in 88 percent of cases, five or more people were killed in the same attack, pointing to the Israeli military’s use of weapons with an effect across a wide area, although it said some fatalities may have been the result of errant projectiles from Palestinian armed groups.


Khamenei aide warns against impulsive Iran response to Israel attack

Updated 54 min 27 sec ago
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Khamenei aide warns against impulsive Iran response to Israel attack

  • Israel is engaged in conflicts with the Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon
  • Israeli warplanes struck military sites in Iran on October 26 in retaliation for a large Iranian missile attack

TEHRAN: An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned against launching an “instinctive” response to Israeli air strikes on the Islamic republic last month.
Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy, is engaged in conflicts with the Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israeli warplanes struck military sites in Iran on October 26 in retaliation for a large Iranian missile attack on Israel at the start of the month.
“Israel aims to bring the conflict to Iran. We must act wisely to avoid its trap and not react instinctively,” the adviser, Ali Larijani, told state television late Thursday.
Iran said it fired 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 in response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a strike on Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was in Tehran.
After Israel hit back, it warned Iran against any counterattack, but the Islamic republic has vowed to respond.
“Our actions and reactions are strategically defined, so we must avoid instinctive or emotional responses and remain entirely rational,” Larijani added.
The former parliament speaker also praised Nasrallah for accepting a ceasefire during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war rather than making an “emotional decision.”
On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said a potential ceasefire between Tehran’s allies and Israel could affect Iran’s response to the Israeli strikes.


Hezbollah claims second attack on Israel naval base in 24 hours

Updated 08 November 2024
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Hezbollah claims second attack on Israel naval base in 24 hours

  • The group had on Thursday claimed another attack on the same area
  • Israel has been at war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah since late September

BEIRUT: Hezbollah said it targeted a naval base near the Israeli city of Haifa with missiles Friday, the second such attack in less than 24 hours.
The Iran-backed Lebanese group said it targeted the “Stella Maris” naval base northwest of Haifa with a missile barrage, “in response to the attacks and massacres committed by the Israeli enemy.”
The group had on Thursday claimed another attack on the same area.
In a separate statement, the group claimed that it had also targeted the Ramat David air base, southeast of Haifa, with missiles.
Israel has been at war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah since late September when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border.
It escalated its air campaign and later sent in ground forces into the country’s south.
This came after a year of cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah, which has said it was acting in support of Hamas Palestinian militants fighting Israel in Gaza.
The war has killed more than 2,600 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to the Lebanese health ministry.