DOZENS KILLED, HUNDREDS INJURED IN IRAN QUAKES

Tehran - Rescue teams in northwest Iran strived Sunday to dig survivors out of the rubble of villages leveled by twin earthquakes that killed at least 180 people and injured more than 1,300, according to officials.

With telephone communications disrupted in the disaster zone, northeast of the city of Tabriz, emergency teams were relying on radios and traveling in person to hard-hit villages to rescue and assess the destruction.

The quakes, which struck Saturday within 11 minutes of each other, measured 6.2 and 6.0, according to Tehran University's Seismological Center.

The US Geological Survey, which monitors seismic activity worldwide, ranked them as more powerful, at 6.4 and 6.3 on the moment magnitude scale, respectively.

"Unfortunately, the toll is mounting and we are now at 180 dead," Khalil Saie, the head of the regional natural disasters center, told state television. He put the number of injured at 1,350.

"Up to now, there are no deaths reported in the cities and all the victims come from rural areas," he said.

Earlier he urged residents in the zone not to panic, reassuring them that "help is arriving and rescuers are already at the scene."

Iran's Red Crescent took over a sports stadium to shelter the 16,000 people left homeless or too afraid to return indoors, the Fars news agency reported.

It also provided 3,000 tents, blankets and tonnes of food -- all a sign of years of preparedness in a nation prone to sometimes catastrophic seismic activity.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's office posted a statement on its website expressing condolences to those in the disaster zone and calling on authorities to "mobilize all efforts to help the affected populations."

According to the official IRNA news agency, 66 rescue teams were at work, using 40 devices and seven dog squads to detect buried survivors. Some 185 ambulances were sent to the area.

Those hurt were taken to hospitals in Tabriz and Ardebil, the two biggest nearby cities, both of which escaped relatively unscathed from the quakes.

In contrast, villages outlying the towns of Ahar and Varzaqan, 60 kilometers (40 miles) from Tabriz, were decimated, being closest to the epicenters of the two quakes. Dwellings close to Heris, another town close by, were also badly shaken.

Residents in the region were terrified as their homes shook around them when the quakes hit, and they fled into the streets for safety, according to reports.

Tehran University's Seismological Center said the first earthquake occurred at 4:53 pm (1223 GMT) at a depth of 10 kilometers.

HOWSTUFFWORKS: How Earthquakes Work

The second -- actually a big aftershock -- rumbled through from nearly the same spot. A series of more than 17 smaller aftershocks rating 4.7 or less rapidly followed.

The disaster zone was located around 90 kilometers from the borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan, and around 190 kilometers from the border with Turkey.

Iran sits astride several major fault lines and is prone to frequent earthquakes, some of which have been devastating.

The deadliest was a 6.6-magnitude quake which struck the southern city of Bam in December 2003, killing 31,000 people -- about a quarter of the population -- and destroying the city's ancient mud-built citadel.

Iranians Struggle to Recover After Powerful Earthquakes

TEHRAN —Thousands of people in Iran's East Azerbaijan province are struggling to cope after their homes were destroyed by two powerful earthquakes that struck minutes apart. Iranian TV says that 12 villages were reduced to rubble and 60 more were badly damaged by the quakes, which measured 6.4 and 6.3 on the Richter scale. At least 250 people were reported killed. 

Iranian TV showed images of villagers walking along rubble-strewn roads in the East Azerbaijan village of Ahr, which it said was destroyed by the quakes. Mud-brick houses appeared to have collapsed, leaving gaping holes and burying residents under piles of rubble.

The video also showed scores of victims of the quakes being treated in hospitals in the cities of Tabriz and Ardebil. Family members gathered around the injured in hospital corridors filled with makeshift beds and equipment.

Iran's Health Minister, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, spoke to reporters in one damaged village, saying aid organizations were doing their best to help the victims.

She says that "families need to bury their dead, at which point we must help them with food, water and tents to live in." She adds that provisional hospitals will be set up in villages to treat the wounded and they will be supplied with needed medication.

Medics and Red Crescent workers transported hundreds of casualties to larger hospitals by ambulance and specially equipped buses. One rescue worker says that more than 1,000 of the wounded were taken to the hospital and that 11 search and rescue teams with radar devices were deployed to the scene of the quakes. He adds that 400 rescue vehicles were sent out along with aid supplies, food and blankets.

Iran's English-language Press TV reported that rescue operations had been called off as of Sunday afternoon and that all those buried under the rubble had been pulled out. Witnesses, however, told news agencies that many collapsed homes have yet to be searched.

Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar visited the quake region on Sunday, praising rescue workers for their efforts in helping the victims.

He says that everyone involved responded well with whatever resources they had to this sudden disaster. He praises them for working so hard and thanks them for their efforts.

Iran has numerous fault lines running across large portions of the country, causing frequent earthquakes. Close to 40,000 people were reported to be killed after a particularly violent quake in the Bam region of the country in 2003.

US Contradicts Israeli Official on Iranian Weapons

The U.S. still believes that Iran is not on the verge of building a nuclear weapon, despite comments by Israel's defense minister that Washington has changed its assessment.

A National Security Council spokesman confirmed Friday the U.S. government continues to assess that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon, and believes there is time to continue diplomatic efforts to dissuade it from doing so.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio on Thursday that a new U.S. intelligence report brings Washington's assessment closer to the Israeli intelligence community's view that the Islamic Republic has made "significant" progress toward military nuclear capability.

Barak was commenting in response to a question about a report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz earlier Thursday. The report said President Barak Obama had received a new National Intelligence Estimate report echoing the Israeli assessment of Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons capability.

Haaretz on Friday quoted an unnamed "senior Israeli official" as saying that due to the Iranian nuclear threat, the "sword at our throat is a lot sharper than the sword at our throat before the Six-Day War" in 1967, one of the four times Israel fought the armies of its Arab neighbors. 

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said Friday that Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like to attack Iran's nuclear sites before the U.S. election in November but that the top officials of Israel's military and intelligence agencies all oppose attacking Iran at this time.

The West suspects Iran wants to build nuclear weapons. Iranian officials have in the past threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. Israel has hinted at an attack if diplomatic efforts and sanctions fail to eliminate Iran's nuclear ambitions.