DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — At least five people were killed by a magnitude 6.1 earthquake in southern Iran early Saturday, state media reported. Two other strong quakes later hit the area.
An emergency services spokesman, Mojtaba Khaledi, told Iranian state television that 49 people had been injured, half of whom were discharged from the hospital later Saturday. Officials said search-and-rescue operations had ended, suggesting that no one was believed to be trapped under rubble.
The state news agency IRNA said the first quake, which did extensive damage to the village of Sayeh Khosh, a village in Hormozgan Province near Iran’s Persian Gulf coast, was followed by two others, with magnitudes of 6.3 and 6.1. There were more than a dozen aftershocks.
The United States Geological Survey gave different figures. It said the first quake was of magnitude 6.0, and that the two that followed had magnitudes of 5.7 and 6.0.
“All of the victims died in the first earthquake, and no one was harmed in the next two severe quakes as people were already outside their homes,” IRNA quoted Foad Moradzadeh, the governor of Bandar Lengeh County, as saying.
Tremors were felt in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Major geological fault lines crisscross Iran, which has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years. In 2003, a magnitude 6.6 quake in Kerman Province killed tens of thousands of people and flattened the ancient city of Bam.
Erin Mendell contributed reporting from Seoul.
