March 25, 2022
A Tehran risk management official says 60 percent of the capital’s buildings don’t meet seismic standards and would be heavily damaged if a major earthquake hit.
The daily Hamshahri quotes the head of the city risk management department, Reza Karami-Mohammadi, as saying 20 percent of Tehran’s buildings would be “completely destroyed” in an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 or greater.
Tehran is home to around 9 million of Iran’s 84 million people.
The capital last saw a major earthquake March 27, 1830, when it was little more than a small town. The epicenter of that quake was located about 30 kilometers northeast of the city, and had a magnitude of about 7.0 to 7.4.
Except for the 1830 quake, no medium-to large-magnitude earthquake (6.5–7.5) has occurred within the Tehran metropolitan area during the past 843 years.
According to the 2017 book, “Tehran: An earthquake time bomb,” by Manuel Berberian and Robert S. Yeats, “This may indicate an [843-year] period of strain accumulation within a long interseismic period between large-magnitude earthquakes in Tehran”—in other words, the city should expect a very major quake at some point.