Iran schoolchildren in quake drill

While 12 million Iranian students from over 50,000 schools practiced on precautionary measures to deal with a possible earthquake on Monday, a relatively strong tremor jolted the northwestern city of Naqadeh.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage to property caused by the quake. Adopting strategies for crisis management and earmarking funds to be spent on precautionary measures to save lives, Iranian officials try to decrease the number of victims in a disaster.

The Ministry of Education, which sponsored the exercise in coordination with the other relief and humanitarian agencies, and the Unesco said it aimed at reducing the loss of life during an earthquake.

Heydar Babaie, an expert involved in the exercise told Gulf News that they try to teach children at school so that they in turn teach their parents how to deal with an earthquake. "This time let children teach their parents, why not?" he said.

During he exercise, hearing a loud alarm, all students immediately went beneath their desks; some others stuck to the corner of their class and some stood firmly inside the door frame.

Next alarm meant the quake has ended and the students should leave their classrooms to a safe place on the campus, while some students in special aid groups took students posing as wounded to ambulances that were there immediately after the second alarm.

Elnaz Safari, a 12-year-old student, who took part in the exercise said she will tell her parents how to deal with an earthquake."

My parents know these things but they have never practiced, while we have been practically involved in it."

Iran is situated on a quake fault-line and seismologists predict a major earthquake may strike Tehran in future. "As far as we go forward, the threat of a major quake approaches us," an expert said.