TEHRAN, Nov 28: Iranian rescue workers handed out blankets, food and water on Monday to survivors of a powerful earthquake on a Gulf island that killed 10 people and forced villagers to spend the night in tents. “Around 1,000 people are housed temporarily in tents and another 2,000 are waiting to be housed,” an official said, adding that the weather was warm with temperatures of about 28 degrees Celsius.

Power was restored to the afflicted villages on the Gulf island of Qeshm after a blackout caused by the quake, which struck on Sunday with a force of about 6.0 on the Richter scale.

“We have distributed the needed tents, blankets, fresh water and food to survivors,” the governor-general of Hormouzgan province, Abdolreza Sheikholeslami, told state television.

He said 30 of the 80 wounded remained in hospital after the tremor, which destroyed or damaged an estimated 1,500 mudbrick houses in about 15 villages on the island and was felt across the Gulf in the United Arab Emirates.

Qeshm island governor Heydar Alishbandi said that a total of 10 people had been killed and that the death toll was not expected to rise further.

Some panicked residents of the island, which is situated off the coast from the large port city of Bandar Abbas and is home to about 100,000 people, slept outside after a second quake jolted the area several hours later.

State news agency IRNA quoted the head of Qeshm’s free-trade zone, Ali Rezapour, as saying the quake caused damage estimated at around 54 million dollars, with 50 schools and about 1,500 houses rendered unsafe.—AFP