Many people died early Friday when a strong earthquake hit southeast Iran and destroyed the historic quarter of the city of Bam, the governor of Kerman province told Iranian radio.

Governor Mohamed Ali Karimi said:" We have no exact knowledge of the scale of the damage and the deaths, but one things is sure: the historic quarter of Bam has been completely destroyed and many of our countrymen are in the ruins."

The quake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale struck the Kerman province Friday morning, inflicting casualties and proper damage, the state news agency IRNA reported.

The earthquake occurred around 5:28 am local time (0158 GMT), and has cut off telephone links between the provincial capital Kerman and several towns, the IRNA said.

The Strasbourg Observatory in France said the quake measured 6.6 on the Richter Scale, and was the most powerful in the region since 1998, the observatory said.

Some 50,000 people were killed in a devastating earthquake, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, in northwestern Iran in June 1990.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2003)