Iran lowers earthquake death toll

Iran has substantially lowered the death toll in the earthquake that devastated the south-eastern city of Bam last year, cutting the fatalities by more than a third.

The head of the State Statistics Centre Abbas Ali Zaali said that 26,271 people died in the quake of magnitude 6.6 that flattened most of the city on December 26, state radio reported.

Officials had previously said more than 41,000 people were killed.

“A big reason for this discrepancy is that some of the dead were counted twice due to the confusion following the quake,” the radio quoted Zaali as saying.

Zaali said 525 people were still listed as missing from the quake, and more than 9,000 people were injured.