At least 23 people were killed and some 100 injured in a strong quake that hit northern and central Iran on Friday, local media reports said.  

Sixteen people were buried in their cars and over 70 others injured by landslides and falling boulders on the mountainous Tehran road to northern Caspian Sea, state-run television reported.

Five people were killed in northern Mazandaran Province and two in central Qazvin Province, Tehran radio said, adding at least 20 other people in several areas were also injured.

In Kelardasht, 100 kilometers north of Tehran, eight people were also injured by the quake.

Meanwhile, 80 villages in northern Iran's Ghazvine Province suffered between 20 and 100 percent damage after the strong earthquake, Provincial Governor Massoud Emami told state television.

The earthquake hit the town of Baladeh and Sari in the northern Iranian province of Mazandaran at 5:08 pm (1338 GMT) Friday, local IRID TV station reported.

The US Geological Survey measured the earthquake at 6.2 degrees on the Richter scale. But Tehran University's seismological center said the quake had a magnitude of 5.5 and its epicenter was in the village of Baladeh, 69 kilometers northeast of Tehran, near the Caspian Sea.

In Tehran, the tremor was also clearly felt. It was reported that some sections of Tehran city hall had seen water pipes burst, cables broken and electricity cut.

State television reported that the earthquake was felt from the Caspian Sea provinces to the central city of Isfahan and the northwest city of Ardebil.

An army spokesman said the army was ready to begin rescue operations if called upon.

Iran is located on seismic fault lines and is prone to earthquakes.

On Dec. 26 last year, a huge tremor measuring 6.8 devastated the Iranian city of Bam in the southeast, killing more than 20,000 people.

(Xinhua News Agency May 29, 2004)