The quake, which hit at 2:49 am (2319 GMT Friday), "destroyed houses damaged in a previous quake this summer ... but did not result in any fatalities," the local police commissioner, Mohammad Moussavi, was quoted as saying.

In July, two quakes measuring 5.6 and 5.8 on the Richter scale in the same area killed two people and injured more than 20 others, while damaging almost 4,300 houses and more than 40 public buildings.

However, the human toll was low as those quakes occurred at night, when many people in the area sleep on their roofs to cool down from the searing heat of the daytime.

Since July, the area has been jolted by more than 200 aftershocks.

Earthquakes are frequent in Iran, which is criss-crossed by a large number of seismic faultlines. Close to a thousand have hit the country since 1991, killing about 17,600 people and injuring another 53,500, according to figures from IRNA.

TERRA.WIRE