TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- A 5.7 magnitude earthquake near Iran's border with Turkmenistan killed two people, injured hundreds and caused widespread damage, the country's seismological center said on Sunday.
The quake, which struck on Saturday in and around the city of Bojnurd, North Khorasan province, killed a 54-year-old woman and a teenage girl, ISNA news agency reported.
It left more than 400 people injured and damaged as many as 40% of houses in the area, it said.
The epicenter of the earthquake was just 50 kilometers from the border with Turkmenistan.
Search and rescue teams, including Red Crescent relief workers, were dispatched to the region and were attending to the injured and searching for survivors, officials said.
According to the province’s Red Crescent office, 12 rapid reaction teams were sent to the city and were able to release 19 people from beneath fallen rubble and debris.
Local officials have noted that the earthquake’s aftermath has blocked access to several villages. They have noted that locals have been asked to sleep outdoors over the probability of aftershocks.
On April 5, a 6.1 magnitude quake killed at least two people near Iran's second city Mashhad, which is located southeast of Bojnurd.
The region is on an active fault line stretching from Turkmenistan's capital Ashgabat into Iran's three provinces of north, central (Razavi) and south Khorasan, according to state news agency IRNA.
The last major earthquake to strike Iran was in 2003 at Bam, in the southeastern province of Kerman, which killed at least 31,000 people and flattened the city.