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"More than 20,000 people have been killed Agence France- Presse said, citing the provincial governor's office. More than 30,000 have been hurt. The quake of magnitude 6.5 struck Bam at 5:26 a.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey."

"Earlier this week, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck the Central California coast. Two people were killed when a building collapsed in Paso Robles and as many as 50 people were injured."

There has to be an effort towards more earthquake-resistant construction in these impoverished areas of the world. It's just sick that a 6.5 earthquake in the US kills two people, while the same magnitude quake in Iran kills tens of thousands. It's so unnecessary.

Well, this most recent one in California was in the middle of nowhere.

Northridge was Magnitude 6.7 and did 50 billion dollars worth of damage and killed 50+ (and had Northridge been located even more towards downtown LA I could see it having killed several hundred).

It is unfortunate though, very basic earthquake-resistant construction isn't THAT expensive if it's incorporated in building something, but in the Third World, dirt-cheap rules.