Earthquake death toll to top 30,000
Survivors of Iran’s earthquake scavenged the rubble for their battered belongings and desperately jostled for aid handouts as the death toll rose to 28,000, with even more feared dead.
President Mohammed Khatami said the toll was expected to top 30,000 – roughly a third of the population in the southeastern city of Bam – but said the figure “definitely won’t reach 40,000”.
With no new survivors pulled from the rubble, aid workers shifted their focus from searching for survivors to treating the injured and homeless – and burying the corpses still being extracted from the disaster left by Friday’s quake.
“We have gone out of the rescue phase and entered the humanitarian relief phase of the operation,” said Ted Peran, the United Nations' top official in Bam. “There’s always hope of pulling more survivors out … but the window of opportunity is closing rapidly.”
He put the toll at 28,000 killed and 12,000 others injured.
Along the ruined streets of Bam, crowds of people surrounded aid trucks. Women in black chadors, some carrying infants, scrambled for old clothes tossed from the back of a truck. Some young men tried to clamber on to the truck to help themselves, but they were pushed back.
Others scavenged in the rubble in search of their belongings. One man drew out a pair of trousers and a bottle of water from a pile of rocks where his house used to be.
With cool temperatures – that drop to near freezing at night – the risk of epidemic was lower than it would be in warmer weather, Peran said, adding there were no reports of disease so far.
Nations worldwide, from India to Venezuela, continued to send help, money and humanitarian goods.
Seven US Air Force C-130 cargo planes delivered 150,000 pounds of relief supplies, and 80 personnel arrived yesterday in Bam. An Australian air force plane unloaded blankets, tarpaulins, water purification tablets, heaters, medical kits and other emergency supplies in Kerman today, an Australian defence official said.
Friday’s earthquake struck before sunrise, entombing thousands of sleeping residents in their homes. The city’s mud-brick houses, constructed without supporting metal or wooden beams, crumbled into small chunks and powdery dust.
Bam’s 2,000 year-old citadel, the world’s largest medieval mud fortress, was largely destroyed by the quake. The tallest section, including a distinctive square tower, crumbled like a sand castle.
Khatami said a committee of foreign experts would determine how best to go about rebuilding the citadel.
“We will rebuild the Bam citadel as the symbol of some 3,000 years of history in this part of Iran,” said Khatami, adding that the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, had offered to help. UNESCO had considered declaring the citadel a protected World Heritage Site.
At Bam’s cemetery, where thousands have already been buried, workers dug 130-foot trenches for corpses wrapped in white shrouds. One woman sat alone pounding the ground with her fist.
“I was a good Muslim. I prayed to God all the time,” sobbed 44-year-old Alma Sepehr, beside a grave holding the remains of 21 relatives including her daughter, son and husband. “Why did this happen to us?”
