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© USGS
An earthquake hit north-eastern Iran on Thursday but there were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.

The magnitude 5.5 quake hit at 4:05pm (local time) about 10 kilometres outside the city of Neyshabur, which is some 70km away from the holy city of Mashhad, the official IRNA news agency said.

"There have been no reports of casualties yet," Red Crescent official Ali Asghar Hassanzadeh told the semi-official Fars news agency, adding that windows of some houses in Neyshabur had been shattered.

The IRNA news agency said the quake lasted seven seconds and was the strongest felt in the region in 10 years.

Editor's note: USGS lists the earthquake as a magnitude 5.1 - data here.

Many parts of Iran are prone to earthquakes. At least seven people were killed in a magnitude 6.5 quake that jolted the south east on December 20 in 2011, the same region where a huge tremor killed some 31,000 people in the city of Bam in 2003.