Shafaq News- Baghdad

Twenty-nine tremors have rattled the Badra district on Iraq's eastern border with Iran across 2025 and 2026, the Iraqi Meteorological Organization and Seismology said Monday, placing the area in a league of its own compared to the rest of central and southern Iraq.

The organization, which operates under the Ministry of Transport, said the tremors ranged in magnitude between 2.0 and 3.7, most too faint to feel. But the pattern is not coincidental as Badra sits at a geological pressure point where the Arabian Plate, grinding northeast, collides with the Eurasian Plate —a slow-motion collision that has been building stress in the earth's crust for millions of years.

That collision produced the Zagros mountain belt, a seismically restless arc stretching from Iran deep into northeastern Iraq and home to some of the most active fault lines in the Middle East. Badra lies in its shadow.

Running directly beneath the district is the Khanaqin-Mandali-Badra fault, a reverse fault traced along the length of the Iraq-Iran border and linked to tremors across both Wasit and Diyala provinces. Compressional force from the plate collision drives its movement, the agency said, with possible lateral slip along sections of the fault at local level.

The organization's 2025 annual bulletin recorded 862 tremors in the country and neighboring states, ranging from magnitude 1.0 to 5.2 and reaching depths of 2 to 45 kilometers. Of those, 463 occurred within Iraqi territory. Diyala province led all provinces with 225 tremors in 2025, followed by Al-Sulaymaniyah with 114 and Erbil with 34. Activity was heaviest along the northern and northeastern corridor and the Iraqi-Iranian border strip.

No casualties or material damage were reported from any seismic event recorded during the year, according to the bulletin.