Posted on 12/26/2003 7:46:59 AM PST by blam
Iran Quake Kills 4,000, Toll Expected to Rise
By Parisa Hafezi
BAM, Iran (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake struck the ancient Silk Road city of Bam in southeastern Iran on Friday, killing at least 4,000 people and injuring some 30,000 others, state television said.
"This is only an initial statistic," the television said, indicating the death toll was expected to rise further.
Iranian television said about 70 per cent of the buildings in the historic city, a popular tourist destination 600 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran, had collapsed in the earthquake which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale.
Reuters witnesses said many houses had been flattened and squares were packed with crying children and people left without a home, huddled in blankets to protect them from the cold.
Corpses shrouded in blankets were hauled into vans.
"I have lost all my family. My parents, my grandmother and two sisters are under the rubble," said Maryam, 17.
One old woman, disconsolate with grief, smeared her face with dirt, only able to utter: "My child, my child."
State media said two of Bam's hospitals had collapsed, crushing many of the staff, and remaining hospitals were full. The wounded were now being ferried to neighboring towns.
Many people were believed to be buried under debris, state media said, appealing for people to donate blood.
"There are a lot of dead and injured in Bam city and everything is being done to take them out," Kerman province governor Mohammad Ali Karimi said.
Russia and Germany swiftly offered help to try to find any survivors under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Russia's Emergencies Ministry, which is highly skilled in reacting to the country's frequent natural and man-made disasters, has rapid response units of doctors, paramedics and dog-handlers -- who can find trapped people.
A large part of Bam's ancient citadel, one of Iran's best-loved tourist magnets, had been destroyed, Karimi said.
The citadel, dating back 2,000 years, contained fortifications, towers, buildings, stables and a mosque.
Bam was located on the old Silk Road route between China and Europe used by merchants and travelers for centuries, and contained inns, a gymnasium, a theological school and bazaars, according to tourism Web sites.
QUAKE STRUCK AT NIGHT
Witnesses said the road to Bam, a city and environs of some 200,000 people, was choked with ambulances and people desperate to find family members.
The quake struck at about 5:30 a.m. when most people in the city would probably have been asleep.
The government mounted a major rescue operation in the date-growing area where houses are traditionally made of mud-brick. The official IRNA news agency said Red Crescent rescue teams had been dispatched to Kerman province.
Another quake, measuring 4.0 on the Richter scale, hit the oil producing town of Masjed Soleyman in the southwestern Khuzestan province. IRNA said there were no reports of damage.
Quakes are a regular occurrence in Iran, which is crossed by several major faultlines in the earth's structure.
In June last year, a tremor measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale hit northern Iran, killing at least 229 people and injuring more than 1,000.
Some 35,000 people were killed in 1990 when earthquakes of up to 7.7 on the Richter scale hit the northwest of Iran. Tehran was hit by a quake of about seven on the Richter scale in 1830.
No I can't because the Iranian people were the only people in the middle east who mourned for us at 9-11. They braved being beaten by the mullahs and their thugs to come out into the streets to hold candlelite vigils to show their sympathy for us. Many were beaten and thrown in jail, but they still came out.
We DID have an earthquake that large in California last week, and only a couple of people (4 or 5) died. That's because we don't build our houses out of mud bricks.
Well, if you count all the original Spanish missions from the 1700's and all the original brick buildings from the 1800's that have been siesmically retrofitted, I'd say a fair number.
I don't know what you would consider ancient, but I doubt any collapsed buildings in Iran are of that category. Anything actually ancient would have already withstood the test of time.
My point is that siemic engineering is well along in developement and is no big secret. Current building codes in developed countries reflect that developement. Iran's poverty and social policies do not allow it to avail itself of this kind of science, except for large, important public buildings, if then.
IMHO, there is no reason, given Iran's valuable natural resources, that it should be acceptable that huge numbers of people die in natural catastrophies.
As I said, Inshah al Allah...
I was in Paso Robles a few days ago. The two women were killed when the second story of one building fell into the street. The ajoining store completely folded into itself. The next store in the row didn't even have broken windows.
Our modern (less than, say 50 years old) are built to shrug off most 'quakes...
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