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This is an archive article published on January 6, 2004

After Bam quake, Iran thinks over moving its capital

Alarmed by the death count and destruction caused by the Bam earthquake, Iran’s top policymakers are considering moving the capital awa...

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Alarmed by the death count and destruction caused by the Bam earthquake, Iran’s top policymakers are considering moving the capital away from quake-prone Tehran.

‘‘The Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) will shortly discuss a plan to move the capital from Tehran,’’ SNSC chief Hassan Rohani was quoted as saying by Hayat-E No on Monday. A plan to move the capital, which lies on a major seismic fault, was proposed by the SNSC in 1991, ‘‘but due to resistance from certain entities in the establishment, the plan was halted’’.

Even before the earthquake, which killed more

than 30,000, seismologists had warned that a strong quake in Tehran would have catastrophic consequences for the city of 12 million people. Bahram Akasheh, professor of geophysics at Tehran University, has said a quake of similar magnitude would kill over seven lakh people.

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Akasheh has written to President Mohammad Khatami to propose moving the capital to the central city of Isfahan, which was the country’s capital in the late 16th century under Shah Abbas the Great.

The Aftab-E Yazd reported Health Ministry estimates that a quake measuring 7 on the Richter scale would destroy 90 per cent of Tehran’s hospitals.

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