The ancient Iranian city of Bam was hit by a mild earthquake almost four years to the day after a catastrophic quake there killed tens of thousands of people, state media reported on Wednesday. The suburbs of Bam in south-eastern Iran were rocked by the 4.2 magnitude quake at around 8:00 pm (1630 GMT) on Tuesday evening, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
The quake that hit Bam in the early hours of December 26, 2003 killed 31,000 people, about a quarter of the city's population, and destroyed the city's ancient mud-built citadel.