Dasht-e Bayaz and Ferdows Earthquake, were two successive earthquakes, which hit Dashte Bayaz, Kakhk

Kakhk

Kakhk is a city in and the capital of Kakhk District, in Gonabad County, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 4,015, in 1,252 families....

 and Ferdows

Ferdows

Ferdows , also Romanized as Ferdos, Ferdous, and Firdaus; named Toon or Tūn until 1929) is a city in and the capital of Ferdows County, located in the northwest of South Khorasan Province in Iran. It is about south of Mashhad and 200 km northwest of Birjand...

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

.

The first earthquake occurred on August 31, 1968, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale

Richter magnitude scale

The expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake....

 and destroyed 5 villages totally in the Dasht-e Bayaz area, and at least half of the buildings in another 6 villages from Kakhk

Kakhk

Kakhk is a city in and the capital of Kakhk District, in Gonabad County, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 4,015, in 1,252 families....

 to Sarayan

Sarayan

Sarayan is a city in, and the capital of, Sarayan County, South Khorasan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 11,098, in 2,933 families....

. After that, a strong aftershock

Aftershock

An aftershock is a smaller earthquake that occurs after a previous large earthquake, in the same area of the main shock. If an aftershock is larger than the main shock, the aftershock is redesignated as the main shock and the original main shock is redesignated as a foreshock...

, measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale

Richter magnitude scale

The expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake....

 , on September 1 destroyed Ferdows

Ferdows

Ferdows , also Romanized as Ferdos, Ferdous, and Firdaus; named Toon or Tūn until 1929) is a city in and the capital of Ferdows County, located in the northwest of South Khorasan Province in Iran. It is about south of Mashhad and 200 km northwest of Birjand...

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More than 175 villages were destroyed or damaged in this earthquake.