Replies

Deadly Earthquake Strikes Southeast Iran
Earthquake Strikes Historic Iranian City of Bam; Officials Say Many People Have Died

The Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran Dec. 26 — A severe earthquake devastated the historic city of Bam in southeast Iran on Friday, and officials said many people were killed.
Hasan Khoshrou, a legislator for Kerman province where the quake occurred, said he had been told the devastation in the city of 80,000 people was "beyond imagination."

"No death toll is available, but it looks to be very, very high," Khoshrou said.

Iranian television said the magnitude 6.3 quake leveled about 60 percent of the houses in Bam, 630 miles southeast of the capital, killing many people as they slept. Authorities put out a call for blood donations.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.7, capable of causing severe damage, and hit at 5:27 a.m. local time.

"Many people have died," Kerman province Gov. Mohammad Ali Karimi told state media. "Many people are buried under the rubble."

Reports said the earthquake destroyed Bam's medieval fortress, a massive, 2,000-year-old structure that sits on a cliff near the city and attracts thousands of tourists each year. The fortress overlooks an ancient, abandoned city of mud huts.

State media reported damage in three villages around Bam and said telephone links with the city were severed. Authorities were in contact with the Bam area through radio and satellite phone links.

Authorities have sent numerous rescue workers with helicopters to the area, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"We are doing everything we can to rescue the injured and unearth the dead," television quoted Karimi as saying.

There were several aftershocks, one of magnitude 5.3, IRNA quoted the geophysics institute of Tehran University as saying.

Earthquakes in the last 25 years have caused thousands of deaths in Iran, which sits on several fault lines. A magnitude 7.7 temblor killed 25,000 in 1978, and a magnitude 6 quake in June, 2002 killed 500 people.