TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

IRAN: The Town That Disappeared

"I was driving home for dinner. Suddenly I thought I had four flat tires. Within seconds, all the houses on both sides of the street collapsed. Then the town disappeared into darkness."

It took only a few seconds more for Hassan Bandegi, 52, head of the town council in the pleasant northeastern Iran community of Tabas, to comprehend what was happening. In a country that has recorded 20,000 earthquakes and aftershocks in the past 18 years and suffered an estimated 100,000 casualties as a result, another temblor of major proportion had struck. In...

Time.com on Digg

POWERED BY digg

Quotes of the Day »

DAVID CAMERON, British Prime Minister, on England's soccer manager, Fabio Capello, who resigned after challenging the FA's decision to strip John Terry of the captaincy; Terry denies a charge of racially abusing QPR's Anton Ferdinand
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.