At least three people were killed and 800 more injured on Saturday when a 5.9-magnitude earthquake hit northwestern Iran near the border with Türkiye, state officials and media said Sunday.
Panicked residents fled their homes as buildings collapsed and rubble crushed cars, with hundreds seeking shelter from freezing winter conditions in evacuation centers as more than 20 aftershocks rattled the region.
The shallow quake hit the city of Khoy, with a population of around 200,000, in West Azerbaijan province at 9:44 p.m. (6:14 p.m. GMT) Saturday, said the Seismological Center of the University of Tehran.
"This incident has left 816 injured and three dead," West Azerbaijan Gov. Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian was quoted as saying by IRNA news agency.
People were seen wrapped in blankets and huddling around fires in the snow-dusted region, in images published by Iranian media, as state TV broadcast footage of major damage to residential buildings, including half-destroyed houses.
Buildings in 70 villages suffered quake damage, the state news agency reported, with rescuers clearing rubble to free those trapped in the area around 800 kilometers (500 miles) northwest of the capital Tehran.
Iran's Red Crescent Society chief, Pirhossein Koolivand, later announced the search and rescue operations had finished, with no more survivors or bodies believed trapped.
Iran's interior minister, Ahmad Vahidi, traveled to Khoy to observe the situation, where he said water, power and gas connections were impacted but being restored, IRNA reported.
Meanwhile, Türkiye Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said no damage or casualties have been reported in Van province, which borders Iran.
Relevant AFAD teams were still carrying out fieldwork to determine damage in the area, AFAD president Yunus Sezer said on Twitter.
History of major quakes
Iran sits astride the boundaries of several major tectonic plates and experiences frequent seismic activity.
On Jan. 18, a previous, 5.8-magnitude quake near Khoy left hundreds injured.
In February 2020, a 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck the western Türkiye village of Habash-e Olya and killed at least nine people.
Iran's deadliest recorded quake was a 7.4-magnitude tremor in 1990 that killed 40,000 people, injured 300,000 and left half a million homeless in the country's north.
In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude quake in southeastern Iran leveled the ancient mud-brick city of Bam and killed at least 31,000 people.
In November 2017, a 7.3-magnitude quake in Iran's western province of Kermanshah killed 620 people.
And in December 2019 and January 2020, two earthquakes struck near Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Iran's Gulf Arab neighbors have raised concerns about the reliability of the country's sole nuclear power facility and the risk of radioactive leaks in case of a major earthquake.