A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Iran, wrecking villages, bringing down power lines, and killing up to seven people and injuring hundreds more, Iranian media reported yesterday.

The late Monday quake, with its epicentre near the town of Hosseinabad in Kerman province, was followed by more than 30 further tremors, including one of 5.0 magnitude, the Mehr news agency said, quoting the geophysics department of Teheran university.

State media reported that mild tremors continued into yesterday near the epicentre of the main quake.

“So far damage has been concentrated in villages in the areas of Sahraj, and seven dead and hundreds of injured have been pulled from the debris,” Mehr quoted Kerman governor Esmail Najjar as saying.

“Considering the damage, the death toll is expected to rise,” he added.

Other Iranian media gave slightly different casualty tolls. The state television website quoted the head of Iran’s emergency medical services, Gholam Reza Masoumi, as saying that four people had died.

Meanwhile, A 6.2-magnitude earthquake also struck off northern Indonesia’s Sumatra island yesterday, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, placing its epicentre near the site of the December 2004 earthquake.

There was no immediate tsunami warning.