Four killed in southern Iran earthquake

Four people have been killed after an earthquake struck southern Iran on Friday.

The magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck in the early hours in the village of Saifabad near the town of Khonj, about 1,000km south of Tehran.

The four fatalities were Afghan nationals, who worked on local farms, Iranian state television reported. Another four were injured, one of whom was also an Afghan labourer.

The local governor, Mokhtar Abbasi, said on TV that rescue workers are on site, helping the victims in Saifabad and also assessing the damage in neighbouring villages. The quake did not affect infrastructure and utilities, Abbasi said.

The epicenter of the quake is in a mountainous and sparsely populated rural area.

Iran sits on a major seismic fault lines and experiences one slight quake a day on average. In 2003, some 26,000 people were killed by a magnitude 6.6 quake that flattened the historic southeastern city of Bam.