But since an earthquake measuring up to 6.1 on the Richter scale jolted the mountains to the north of the shoddy, sprawling city, fears of a looming catastrophe of biblical proportions have set in.

The May 28 earthquake, which measured between 5.5 and 6.1 on the Richter scale, killed 35 people and injured more than 200 in two provinces crossed by the vast Alborz mountain range.

But alarmingly, the quake also shook Tehran. For several seconds, walls vibrated as if a heavy truck was speeding past right outside the door, cracks appeared in the plaster and windows were shattered.

Residents were sent running out onto the streets, with those living in high-rise blocks realising the evacuation took quite long without using an elevator. Thousands chose to spend the night outdoors.

The following day, newspapers carried images of cars crushed by rocks on the main mountain road to the Caspian Sea coast, a popular destination for Tehranis.

With memories of the mass death and destruction of the December earthquake in Bam still fresh, it appears -- for the time being at least -- that the very real dangers of a quake in Tehran have been brought home.

But with fear has come rumour.

With aftershocks still rumbling, news that a quake would hit Tehran on Friday, May 29 at precisely 4:00 pm spread like wildfire. The source of the rumour was supposedly state media, and prompted yet more evacuations.

The truth, however, is hard to bear for many.

"It is impossible to predict the power and timing of an earthquake," insisted Mohsen Ghafori Ashtiani, president of Iran's Seismological Institute.

"These rumours are completely false," added Mahmoud Fatemi Aghda, director of the Natural Disasters Institute. "Since March, the faults under Tehran have not moved."

While last Friday's catastrophe never happened, and even though the experts have been on the air waves urging calm, the rumours keep doing the rounds.

Yet another quake was supposed to come on Wednesday, June 2, with the prediction falsely attributed to a professor, Mohammad Reza Rahimi Tabar, at Sharif university -- one of the capital's most prestigious learning institutions.

Despite yet more denials that the faultlines under Tehran had been "activated" by a tremor in a province to the east, hundreds of students there chose to spend a night under the stars rather than risk being crushed by collapsing dormitories.

The local press has also latched onto the website (http://quake.exit.com) of Zhonghao Shou, a Chinese scientist living in California, who claims he can predict earthquakes by cloud formations apparently caused by the heat given off by strained seismic faults.

As a result, the clouds above the capital are beginning to interest people.

One local press agency then reassured people by claiming there would not be another earthquake within three days. And the pundits are now expecting the worst to come on Tuesday, June 8.

Some people are latching onto the rather alarming statistic that a quake can be expected in Tehran every 150 years.

The last one, residents have noted with trepidation, occurred 170 years ago. This makes it all a question of "when", and not "if".

For when the big one does come, Tehran's residents can be assured of a total catastrophe. According to various studies, notably by Japanese experts, a quake measuring over 6 degrees on the Richter scale could kill more than one million of greater Tehran's 12 million people.

"Since one week, our car is full of water, blankets, biscuits and canned food," explained Ahmad, a young resident here.

But aside from making the obvious preparations, the fear also appears to have sparked some deeper soul-searching, and a new look at a capital marred by anarchic building practices where developers have placed scores of high-rise apartment blocks -- mostly cobbled together by cheap Afghan labour -- on top of seismic faults.

"People are afraid," admitted one local property agent. "They are not buying apartments. The market was stagnating a bit before, but now it's worse."

TERRA.WIRE