- Iran has a number of nuclear sites, which are monitored by the global watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
- Today's quakes comes just three weeks after a magnitude 7.3 quake shook Iran close to the Arak heavy water reactor and production plant
Just three weeks after a magnitude 7.3 quake shook Iran leaving 300 dead and more than 70,000 people in need of emergency shelter Iran is under the earthquake cosh again.
Three earthquakes hit eastern Iran in quick succession early Friday close to Isfahan and Bushehr Nuclear sites, the first a fairly strong magnitude 6.0 tremor that struck at a shallow depth close to the populous city of Kerman, the US Geological Survey said.
Today's quakes come just three weeks after the mag 7.3 struck close to the Arak heavy water reactor production plant leading to the question when will one of these nuclear sites receive a direct hit?
It was followed by two less powerful 5.0 and 5.1 aftershocks in the same area, the survey said.
"For the moment, no deaths have been reported but there has been destruction in several villages," Hossein-Ali Mehrabizadeh, an official with the crisis unit in Kerman, told state television.
With the tremors hitting around 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of Kerman, USGS modelling predicted a low chance of widespread loss of life or property.
The University of Tehran's seismology centre gave slightly different figures, announcing an earthquake of 6.1, followed by aftershocks of 5.1 and 4.
The latest tremors come just over two weeks after a 7.3 quake killed more than 500 people in western Kermanshah province, close to the border with neighbouring Iraq.
Iran sits on top of where two major tectonic plates meet and see's frequent seismic activity.
Friday's quake hit around 200 kilometres northwest of the ancient city of Bam, which was decimated by a catastrophic quake in 2003 that killed at least 31,000 people.
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.
Iran has experienced at least two other major disasters in recent years -- one in 2005 that killed more than 600 people and another in 2012 that left some 300 dead.
Today's quake is the first major quake of December and the 103rd of 2017.
Scientists are sounding the alarm about a volcano eruption in Antartica that could cause global health problems. The ash from this eruption could encircle the globe, affecting millions of people.
Deception Island, off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, is a hotbed of volcanic activity with at least 50 craters spread across the region. A recent study done in the area by scientists has found evidence that an eruption on the island could disrupt air traffic on continents in the Southern Hemisphere, including South America and Africa. It could also cause some major health concerns for the whole globe.
The findings of the research show that Antarctica’s volcanoes can have an effect across the world, says Charles Connor, a geoscientist at the University of South Florida in Tampa not involved in the research. “We have to reassess the potential hazards for global transportation networks posed by even these remote volcanoes.”
“Ash emitted during explosive volcanic eruptions may disperse over vast areas of the globe posing a threat to human health and infrastructures and causing significant disruption to air traffic,” scientists warned in their report.
“Volcanic ash emitted from Antarctic volcanoes could potentially encircle the globe, leading to significant consequences for global aviation safety.”
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