Tremors from Iran quake kill 13 in Pakistan

REUTERS: At least 13 people were killed and hundreds of houses destroyed in south-western Pakistan on Tuesday when the region was struck by tremors from an earthquake that was centred in neighbouring Iran, Pakistani officials said. Tremors from the 7.8 magnitude quake were also felt in India and Gulf states.

The epicentre was in southeast Iran, in an area of mountains and desert, about 200 km (125 miles) southeast of Zahedan and 250 km northwest of Turbat in Pakistan, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Pakistani officials said at least eight people were killed and 20 wounded in the town of Mashkeel in the south-western Pakistani province of Baluchistan, which borders Iran. Mohammed Ashraf, the head of a local health centre in Mashkeel, said several hundred houses in the town had collapsed. Three women and two children were also killed when their mud house collapsed in the Baluchistan district of Panjgur.