[DoctorZIn]

Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin”

[DoctorZIn]

Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin”

[DoctorZIn]

I just received this from a student in Iran...

"It is really hard to write any thing about what happened in my country and in one of the oldest cities of Iran.
And it is harder to make you sad when you are celebrating the New Year.

I want to thank those Freepers who sent Condolence Messages and I'd like to say my best wishes to them as well.

I also need to share my frustration with those people who keep making cruel remarks toward the people of Iran in this time of tragedy. They know nothing about the real faces of the Iranian society

I want to thank you in advance for the help you and your nation are providing those touched by the tragedy and also in our struggle to end our brutal regime.

Thank you very much."

What the people of Iran need today is not insults but our support in achieving their goal and their goal is freedom. -- DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

Statement by the President

December 26, 2003
The WHite House
President George W. Bush

Laura and I heard this morning of the earthquake centered in the city of Bam, Iran. We are greatly saddened by the loss of life, injuries, and widespread damage to this ancient city. I extend my condolences to all those touched by this tragedy. The thoughts of all Americans are with the victims and their families at this time, and we stand ready to help the people of Iran.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031226-1.html

[DoctorZIn]

This just in from Iran...

I am being told that they can hear a large number of helicopters returning to Tehran, apparently with the wounded from Bam.

They are also saying that real government help has yet to arrive.

[DoctorZIn]

Red Cross Sets Up Iran Quake Appeal

December 26, 2003
AFP
ABC News

The International Red Cross (IRC) is preparing an appeal for about $US8 million to help victims of the deadly earthquake that devastated part of south-eastern Iran, a spokesman said.

The appeal will cover emergency supplies such as tents, blankets, and possibly field hospitals, IRC and Red Crescent Societies spokesman Roy Probert said.

"We will be putting out a preliminary appeal in the next few hours - the Iranian Red Crescent asked us for help," Mr Probert said.

"It will probably be about 10 million Swiss francs [$US8 million]," he said.

Mr Probert said national Red Cross societies in Europe were already "queuing up" with offers of help for Iran.

The Iranian Red Crescent had deployed two field hospitals in the first hours after the disaster, as well as tents and medical supplies.

The Red Crescent in Iran is highly regarded at the Geneva-based IRC, because of its experience in dealing with the aftermath of more than 1,000 earthquakes in the country since 1991, which have claimed about 17,600 lives.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1016663.htm

[DoctorZIn]

Israeli NGOs Look to Help Iran Quake Victims

December 27, 2003
The Jerusalem Post
JPost.com

The Foreign Ministry announced Friday that Israeli non-governmental organizations are "looking into offering their help" victims of the catastrophic earthquake in southeastern Iran.

The 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck about 5:30 a.m., local time, collapsing buildings in the city of Bam in southeastern Iran, severing power lines and shutting down water service.

Israel regards Iran as its greatest external security threat, and Iran has recently threatened Israel with missile attack if the latter attacked Iran's nuclear facilities.

Mohammed Ali Karimi, the governor of Kerman province, told Khatami that preliminary estimates put the death toll at 5,000 to 6,000, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Iran has appealed for international aid.

"We need sniffer dogs and detection equipment, blankets, medicines, food, but also prefabricated houses because winter is coming very quickly," an interior ministry statement said.

Belgium, Germany, Spain, Greece, Russia and Turkey were among the first to respond.

The United Nations is dispatching a team of experts to Iran.

The International Red Cross (IRC) is preparing an appeal for about $US8 million to help victims of the deadly earthquake that devastated part of south-eastern Iran, a spokesman told AFP.

The appeal will cover emergency supplies such as tents, blankets, and possibly field hospitals, IRC and Red Crescent Societies spokesman Roy Probert said.

The United States will offer humanitarian aid to Iran after an earthquake in the southern part of the country killed at least 5,000 and injured 30,000, the White House said Friday.

"I extend my condolences to all those touched by this tragedy," President George W. Bush said in a statement Friday. "The thoughts of all Americans are with the victims and their families at this time, and we stand ready to help the people of Iran."

A senior administration official said it was too early to say what form the aid might take. The Red Cross, the Iranian Red Crescent Society and the United Nations are assessing damage, and the U.S. assistance will reflect what those organizations and what Tehran say Iran needs, the official said.

Bush said: "We are greatly saddened by the loss of life, injuries, and widespread damage to this ancient city."

Bush had not spoken to any Iranian leaders, said his spokesman, Scott McClellan, who was flying with the president to Texas for a weeklong holiday break at his ranch in Crawford.

McClellan said he did not know whether any aid discussions would be carried out through an intermediary organization or a third country.

The United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with Iran, which Bush described, along with Iraq and North Korea, as part of the "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union speech. The United States says Iran sponsors terrorism, is trying to acquire nuclear weapons and has a poor human rights record.

U.S. sanctions prohibit most trade with Iran and most dealings between the countries are conducted through the auspices of Switzerland, Pakistan or international organizations.

Last year, United States used the United Nations to channel $300,000 in humanitarian aid to Iran after a magnitude 6.1 million quake killed 245 people in the northwestern part of the country.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1072420674113&p=1008596981749

[DoctorZIn]

City of the Dead in Iran

December 27, 2003
The Sun
Michael Lea

AT least 20,000 people were feared dead last night after an earthquake left the ancient Iranian city of Bam devastated “beyond imagination”.

Seventy per cent of its traditional mud-brick buildings — home to 80,000 — were flattened.

Sobbing relatives tore at debris with their hands, trying to find loved ones. Corpse after shrouded corpse was loaded into vans.

As darkness fell homeless families huddled under blankets, shivering in temperatures of -6°C.

A distraught 17-year-old who gave her name only as Maryam said: “I have lost all my family under the rubble.” A grief-stricken old woman smeared her face with dirt as she repeated: “My child, my child.”

At Bam’s only cemetery, 1,000 mourners wailed and beat their chests and heads as hundreds upon hundreds of bodies were buried in mass graves.

Mohammed Karimi, in his 30s, was there with his dead wife and daughter. Cradling four-year-old Nazine’s body, he sobbed: “Last night before she went to sleep she made me a drawing and kissed me four times. When I asked, ‘Why four kisses?’ she said, ‘Maybe I won’t see you again, Papa’.”

The official death toll stood at 20,000 with more than 50,000 injured. About 90 per cent of the injured were said to be critical.

Countries including Britain geared up for an international aide operation. A spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said fire and rescue teams from Essex, Hampshire and Kent were on their way.

Those on stand-by included Rapid-UK, which has up to 20 rescuers and search dogs ready to jet off, and a 15-strong team from the British-based International Rescue Corps.

US President George Bush vowed to send humanitarian assistance, despite his country having broken off diplomatic relations with Iran after 52 Americans were held hostage there throughout 1980.

Russia, Greece, Italy, Germany and Jordan also pledged help. UN officials said they were releasing an immediate emergency grant of £60,000 and had sent experts to assess damage.

The most pressing need was said to be for medicines, tents, mobile hospitals, electricity generators, water purification equipment and blankets.

The quake — 6.3 on the Richter scale — struck at 5.28am local time. It was followed by a series of aftershocks, one measuring 5.3.

Water supplies, electricity and phone lines were all cut to the city, 630 miles south-east of the capital Tehran. Its 2,000-year-old citadel — which attracts thousands of tourists — was all but ruined.

Two hospitals crumbled, crushing doctors and nurses. Hundreds of injured had to be evacuated to hard-pressed hospitals 120 miles away. Many lay on floors waiting for life-saving treatment.

Roads in and out of Bam were choked with ambulances ferrying the wounded and people desperately searching for family members.

Local politician Mohammad Ali Karimi said: “There are a lot of dead and injured. What is certain is the old structure of the city has been totally destroyed.”

It was the worst quake to hit Iran since 1990 when 50,000 people died in the north west.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003600515,00.html

[DoctorZIn]

2,000 Years of History in Ruins

December 27, 2003
The Guardian
Tania Branigan

For two millennia the tawny walls of the ancient citadel at Bam rose from the vast Dasht'e Kavir desert, drawing traders and pilgrims towards the lush oasis. But in just a few minutes yesterday morning, those centuries of splendour vanished as one of Iran's greatest archaeological treasures was levelled.

The citadel, one of the greatest mudbrick structures in the world, had simply crumbled - along with hundreds of houses in the modern city around it.

While Bam has a long and glorious past it was its more recent success as an agricultural and industrial centre which drew thousands of migrants from across the south-east of Iran, indirectly leading to the earthquake's huge death toll.

Large-scale, low-quality construction dominated as foreign and domestic investment boosted the city's population to as many as 200,000 inhabitants. Residents copied the mudbrick structures of their ancestors, but added heavier roofing and threw up the buildings rapidly to cope with the desperate shortage of housing.

Until yesterday Bam's rapid growth appeared to herald a city on the rise. Much of the credit for its expansion is owed to Iran's former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was born to a pistachio-farming family in the region.

The city is famed for its rich crops: above all its dates, but also the oranges which are currently in season. Lush citrus groves surround the urban sprawl.

Mr Rafsanjani used his position to electrify the city - although power was cut off by yesterday's quake - and create the Arg special economic zone at Bam, where Daewoo car seats are now manufactured. Further investment brought hotels, sports fields, a race course and an airport - which may prove crucial to the international rescue and relief operation.

The new facilities now lie amid the devastation of the older areas, where residents yesterday shivered around the bonfires they had built on rubble-strewn streets.

"The historical quarter of the city has been completely destroyed and caused great human loss," said Mehran Nourbakhsh, chief spokesman for the Red Crescent.

There could be no greater contrast with the splendour the city once knew. Its citadel, Arg-e Bam, built from mud bricks, straw and the trunks of palm trees, covers almost six square kilometres. Hundreds of houses encircled the ruler's palace; its central stables housed 200 horses; and it boasted a prison, a bazaar and a gymnasium. It appears that few of those structures remain today.

"It's a tragedy for the whole country," said Shahrokh Razmjou, a curator at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran.

"The citadel is one of the greatest structures made in mudbrick in the world. Outside the fortified walls you have traces of the Parthian period, almost 2,000 years ago, and there are references to the town in documents from earlier periods as well."

Dr Razmjou said that over time the town has developed layer upon layer. "There have been reconstructions and changes to the city in different dynasties. You have almost everything there from different periods: mosques, schools, the palace for governor and houses for the people."

Bam became an important commercial centre because of its location on the Silk Road between China and Europe, and the southern trade route from Pakistan and India. The city is just 350km (217 miles) west of modern Pakistan.

It was celebrated for its high quality textiles, and its Zoroastrian fire temple - later replaced by a mosque - attracted pilgrims from across the region. At the height of its power, in the Savafid period, between the 16th and 18th centuries, it was home to almost 13,000 people.

But it gradually declined in importance after an Afghan invasion in 1722, and most residents moved to areas outside the walls in the 19th century, leaving the citadel to be used as barracks until even the army abandoned it in 1932.

Restoration efforts began 21 years later, and after the revolution it became a major tourist site, attracting more than 100,000 visitors each year.

But tourism had recently been hit by crime in the region, including the kidnap of western holidaymakers by armed gangs.

Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office advised visitors to exercise caution and travel only with government-approved tours.

The loss of valuable income from foreign holidaymakers will compound the desperate plight of Bam's residents. "Historically and archaeologically the whole area is very, very rich and a very important part of Iran," said Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, a curator at the British Museum and editor of Iran, a journal of Iranian studies.

"It's a terrible shame, though the human loss is of course far greater. With this earthquake the damage is probably so, so great that I don't know whether they can reconstruct [the citadel]. They did a lot of work there with the Cultural Heritage Foundation and have detailed plans so they do know exactly what the outlines are. But of course it would be very difficult - and costly - to reconstruct it."

Unesco, the United Nations main cultural agency, has asked Tehran for permission to dispatch an assessment team to examine what remains of the structure.

John Curtis, keeper of the ancient near east at the British Museum, said that the Iranian government had a good record in preserving cultural sites, but that there were not many precautions they could have taken to prevent damage to a site such as the citadel.

"They have looked after archaeological and historic sites very well and I'm sure they will do their best to minimise the impact of this disaster, but it will be substantial nonetheless," he said.

"It's a very spectacular site, incredibly well preserved, which is why it's so important; it's a whole 18th century town. It's a great loss to the cultural heritage of Iran.

"The tourist trade in Iran has been gradually increasing ever since the revolution and there are many spectacular sites. But I have no doubt they were hoping to promote and encourage tourism and this is obviously a blow to that effort."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1112944,00.html

[DoctorZIn]

Survivor: "I Feel I Could Die Tonight It's So Cold"

December 26, 2003
Reuters
Parisa Hafezi

BAM, Iran -- Tahmasb Yousefabadi said he lost 17 family members when an earthquake razed much of this ancient Iranian city and buried thousands of people.

Streets were packed with frightened survivors, huddling under blankets and hoping that relief supplies would come soon.

"No-one has come to help us. All we are after is a tent. I feel I could die tonight it's so cold," said Yousefabadi, 25, a taxi driver.

The quake toppled about 70 percent of the buildings in the city, burying sleeping residents under their mud-brick homes.

As night fell and temperatures headed below zero, people lit fires to keep warm and made torches from palm branches for light as they dug with bare hands for survivors.

Bam was without water, gas or electricity. Bawling infants and dazed adults who had escaped the collapse of their homes were gathered in city squares, shivering from the cold under woolen blankets.

The dead were piled on the back seats of cars or heaved into trucks. The injured lay on brick- and rubble-strewn pavements, some receiving intravenous fluids.

Workers dug trenches that were hastily filled with corpses.

"If this were the West, we would have had plenty of help by now," said Ruhollah Bahrami, a shopkeeper.

Roads into Bam were choked with ambulances and cars full of people desperate to find out whether their relatives were alive.

Residents handed out biscuits to the motorists and gasoline to ambulances.

President Mohammad Khatami appealed for international aid. The government said it had sent 19 aircraft to ferry survivors to hospitals, while helicopters were being used to remove some of the injured.

Television showed dirty and dazed survivors packed into one commercial airliner. Many were bloodied, and some were wrapped in sheets.

Several nations were sending teams of doctors and rescuers with sniffer dogs and special equipment to locate survivors buried beneath rubble. But one survivor, Maryam, 17, said the ambulances would come too late.

"I have lost all my family. My parents, my grandmother and two sisters are under the rubble," she said.

Maliheh, 50, said she had lost her three children and was desperate for a cell phone to contact family and friends.

Old women beat their heads and smeared their faces with dirt at the sight of their relatives' corpses laid out in rows, and state television showed people wailing as the severely injured were taken to Tehran for treatment.

Reporters at the scene said that they had seen few aid workers and that the hospitals still operating were overflowing. Many of the injured were being taken to neighboring towns.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=12&d=27&a=6

[freedom44]

September 18, 2001: Iranian women light candles in Tehran's Mohseni Square in memory of the victims of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC.


Ordinary Iranians mourned 9/11.. one died that night at the hands of the thugs in the regime who attacked those mourning.

[DoctorZIn]

Pak revelations strengthen probe into Iran's N-programme

Associated Press
Vienna, December 27

While Pakistan and its nationals are believed to have played the major role in helping Iran's nuclear programme, more than six other countries are now under UN scrutiny, diplomats and arms experts say.

They say a months-long investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has traced the origins of the Iranian enrichment programme to the late 1980s, when Iran was supplied with the first drawings on centrifuge technology, its main way of enriching uranium.

The investigations have widened "well beyond" Pakistan, Russia and China to include companies in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other West European countries, one diplomat said.

One of those talking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity also linked Pakistan to North Korea's weapons programme, saying US intelligence had "pretty convincing" evidence of such a connection.

Iran and North Korea are the key concerns of the Vienna-based UN atomic agency, whose main task is to curb weapons proliferation through inspections and monitoring of countries that have ratified the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

North Korea withdrew from that treaty after the Bush administration revealed the existence of its nuclear weapons programme late last year.

After months of intense international pressure, Iran now is cooperating with IAEA efforts to unravel nearly two decades of covert activities that the United States and other countries say point to a weapons programme.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_509869,00050004.htm

[F14 Pilot]

L.A.-based search-and-rescue team headed to Iran

AP
Herald Tribune, CA
Saturday, December 27

LOS ANGELES --
A search-and-rescue team comprised primarily of county firefighters prepared to depart Saturday to Iran to aid victims of a devastating earthquake.

About 70 firefighters from California Task Force Two were loading up equipment early Saturday morning at a Pacoima facility and were set to fly to Iran aboard a military cargo plane, said Inspector Roland Sprewell of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

It was the first international deployment for the team, which also responded to the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and went to New York City and Washington D.C. following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Sprewell said.

The crews were packing enough food to sustain them for 10 to 15 days, which is the expected length of their mission, he said.

Special cameras with lenses that can fit in tight crevices were being packed for the trip and search dogs also were going on the trip to Iran, Sprewell said. Several local fire departments volunteered search dogs, including "Duke," a chocolate Labrador from Santa Barbara County, that recently searched for survivors following the Paso Robles earthquake.

A magnitude 6.5 quake hit the southeast Iranian city of Bam early Friday and tens of thousands were feared dead.

The California team was one of two teams nationwide headed for Iran, with the other team being sent from Fairfax County, Va., Sprewell said.

The federal government's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance requested the help of the Los Angeles-based team, Sprewell said.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031227/APN/312270579

[BellStar]

"we stand ready to help the people of Iran."
GWB

Help is on the way!

[DoctorZIn]

I just heard FoxNews report that the USA is forming significant teams to assist in the rescue of the victims of the Iranian Earthquake. The estimates of deaths from the quake has now risen from 20,000 to 40,000 people.

[DoctorZIn]

UK Experts Joining Quake Rescue

December 27, 2003
BBC News
BBCi

British rescue teams are "optimistic" they will find earthquake survivors, after arriving in Iran on Saturday.

More than 60 UK doctors, paramedics and volunteers were joining emergency workers in the city of Bam, where 10,000 to 25,000 people are feared dead.

Graham Payne, head of charity Rapid-UK said: "The weather is not too bad, so if anyone is found trapped there is a good chance we will get them out."

The UK government has pledged £150,000 to help pay for emergency supplies.

The British Embassy in Tehran said that up to 30 Britons known to be in Bam, one of Iran's most important tourist sites, all survived the earthquake.

Sniffer dogs

The British rescuers flew from Stansted Airport in Essex to Kerman, 125 miles from the epicentre of Friday's quake, which also injured thousands of people and destroyed 70% of homes.

The government funded flight also carried sniffer dogs and officials.

Christmas dinners abandoned to help

Rapid-UK's team of 20 was expected to scour rubble from two hospitals and larger apartment blocks that local workers have not had time to search.

They have specialist equipment with them, including snake-eye cameras, high-tech listening devices and carbon dioxide detectors, to search for people trapped under buildings.

Also on the flights were members of the International Rescue Corps (IRC) and fire and rescue teams from Essex, Hampshire and Kent.

The IRC's Willie McMartin said rescuers would have been working since the earthquake to rescue people on the surface of buildings.

"We then go on to look for all the people who are sub-surface, deeply trapped within the structures," he said.

"That's where the specialists come in."

The British Red Cross (BRC) has launched an appeal to raise money for tents, tarpaulins, water containers, kitchen sets and water purification tablets.

Paul Anticoni, head of international aid at BRC, said: "The Iranian Red Crescent are well trained and ready to respond to earthquakes, however due to the massive scale of this disaster they need our help."

'Thoughts and prayers'

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn described the earthquake as a "major catastrophe", but said there survivors could still be found.

He said: "We know from previous disasters that some people have remained trapped under buildings for some days."

Mr Benn said the Iranian authorities were being very helpful and had cleared the British helpers without visas.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw spoke to Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi to express the condolences of the British Government.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of this area who have been affected," he said.

Anyone wanting to donate to the Red Cross appeal can call0207 245 1000.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3350551.stm

[DoctorZIn]

Iran's Arch-foe Israel Offers Condolences

December 27, 2003
AFP
ABC News

The Israeli Government offered condolences on Saturday following the devastating earthquake in Iran, saying it had "no conflict" with the Iranian people, despite its enmity with the Islamic regime.

"The Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister, Sylvan Shalom, addresses in the name of the Israeli Government and the people of Israel condolences to the Iranian people after the catastrophe," the Foreign Ministry said.

"The Government and people of Israel are moved by the human tragedy experienced by the Iranian people and believe that despite all differences a mobilisation of the whole international community is needed to come to the help of families of the victims and wounded," it said in a statement.

Tehran has called for international relief aid from any country except Israel following Friday's quake in south-east Iran, according to a provisional official estimate.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1016907.htm

[DoctorZIn]

U.N. Probe Into Iran's Nuclear Program Widens

December 27, 2003
The Associated Press
The santa Fe New Mexican

VIENNA, Austria -- While Pakistani scientists are believed to have played a major role in advancing Iran's nuclear program, more than a half-dozen other countries are now being drawn into the U.N. investigation, diplomats and arms experts say.

They say a monthslong probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency has traced the origins of Iran's program to the late 1980s, when Iran was supplied with the first drawings on centrifuge technology, its main way of enriching uranium.

The investigations have widened "well beyond" Pakistan, Russia and China to include companies in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other West European countries, said one diplomat.

There are no U.N. or other international sanctions against Iran that would have prevented foreign companies from providing equipment that could be used in a nuclear program. But investigating companies yielded useful information when the world body investigated Iraq's weapons programs in the early 1990s.

One of those diplomats talking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity also linked Pakistan to North Korea's weapons program, saying U.S. intelligence had "pretty convincing" evidence of such a connection.

Iran and North Korea are the key concerns of the Vienna-based U.N. atomic agency, whose main task is to curb weapons proliferation through inspections and monitoring of countries that have ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

North Korea withdrew from that treaty after the Bush administration revealed the existence of its nuclear-weapons program late last year.

After months of intense international pressure, Iran now is cooperating with IAEA efforts to unravel nearly two decades of covert activities that the United States and other countries say point to a weapons program.

Iran insists its nuclear activities are peaceful. But suspicions have heightened with revelations that it was enriching uranium, and the discovery of traces of weapons-grade enriched uranium on some of its centrifuge equipment.

A diplomat told AP that the agency was following up on three to four different samples of highly enriched uranium -- beyond the two whose existence had been previously revealed.

The agency is trying to trace the origins of the equipment to test Iranian claims that Tehran did not enrich uranium to weapons grade and that the highly enriched traces were inadvertently "imported" on the components. Neither Iran nor the IAEA have revealed the countries of origin, but diplomats had previously told AP that Pakistan, China and Russia were among the probable suppliers.

Russia has acknowledged signing a contract with Iran in the mid-1990s to deliver equipment that could be used for laser enrichment of uranium, but officials in Moscow say the contract was canceled several years later in response to U.S. pressure in the initial stages of the program.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=8&ArticleID=37743

[DoctorZIn]

"This is the Apocalypse"

December 27, 2003
The Associated Press
Ali Akbar Dareini

Overwhelmed rescue crews picked through entire city blocks of rubble in search for survivors and bodies a day after an earthquake ruined this southeast Iranian city. With the death toll in the thousands, Iran appealed for international help and promised to waive visas for foreign relief workers.

The scope of the tragedy was so vast that a reliable death toll was impossible to pin down so soon after the magnitude 6.5 quake hit Bam early Friday. The Interior Ministry's early estimate on Saturday was 20,000 dead, while two leading rescue officials said the toll could eventually double.

"As more bodies are pulled out, we fear that the death toll may reach as high as 40,000. An unbelievable human disaster has occurred," said Akbar Alavi, the governor of the city of Kerman, the provincial capital.

The leader of one relief team, Ahmad Najafi, said in one street alone in Bam on Saturday, 200 bodies had been extracted from the rubble in one hour's work. Workers used their bare hands and shovels, while a few bulldozers moved piles of bricks in the search for bodies and survivors.

A man with white turban and graying beard dug into and lifted rubble from the remains of his house, where his family was buried. When a hand of his teenage daughter appeared, he fainted and collapsed, and eventually, the bodies of his daughter, wife and two sons were brought out.

With hospitals in the area destroyed, military transport planes had to evacuate many wounded for treatment to Kerman, and even to Tehran.

"There is not a standing building in the city. Bam has turned into a wasteland. Even if a few buildings are standing, you cannot trust to live in them," Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari told reporters Saturday.

One man interrupted Lari as he spoke. "My father is under the rubble," the man said, his face streaked with tears. "I've been asking for help since yesterday, but nobody has come to help me. Please help me. I want my father alive."

Lari tried to calm the man down and assigned an aide to see that he got assistance.

Authorities had new trouble to deal with Saturday. About 800 convicts escaped from the Bam prison, guard Vahid Masoumpour told The Associated Press. The prison lies outside the city and its walls fractured or collapsed without killing any inmates.

Thousands of residents of the city spent Friday night outdoors, sleeping under blankets in temperatures close to freezing. A few hundred slept in tents erected by relief workers, and more tents arrived Saturday.

Men and women were seen slapping their own faces and beating their chests in an Islamic ritual of mourning.

"This is the Apocalypse. There is nothing but devastation and debris," Mohammed Karimi, in his 30s, said Friday when he brought the bodies of his wife and 4-year-old daughter to the cemetery.

The government appealed for international aid and said it would waive visa requirements for foreign relief workers.

"The disaster is far too huge for us to meet all of our needs," President Mohammad Khatami said Friday. "However, all the institutions have been mobilized."

Many countries responded, and relief crews from across Europe began arriving. A search-and-rescue team from Los Angeles — mostly county firefighters — was getting ready to go as well.

Bam's population was 80,000 before the quake, and surrounding villages were also severely damaged.

In one of the city's cemeteries, relief workers were digging and a bulldozer was excavating a mass grave. More than 20 corpses were already lying in the mass grave. A cleric and 10 relatives were saying prayers over an individual grave.

The quake destroyed much of Bam's historic landmark — a giant medieval fortress complex of towers, domes and walls, all made of mud-brick, overlooking a walled Old City, parts of which date back 2,000 years. Television images showed the highest part of the fort — including its distinctive square tower — crumbled like a sand castle down the side of the hill, though some walls still stood.

The quake struck at 5:28 a.m., while many were asleep. The state news agency IRNA put the magnitude at 6.3; the U.S. Geological Survey measured it at 6.5. Survivors were panicked throughout the day by aftershocks, including one that registered a magnitude of 5.3, according to the geophysics institute of Tehran University.

The interior minister said 70 percent of residential Bam had been destroyed, and there was no electricity, water or telephone service. Iran's Red Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, said rescue and relief teams had been sent to Bam from numerous provinces.

Entire neighborhoods in Bam had collapsed. On one street, only a wall and the trees were standing. People carried away injured, while others sat sobbing next to the blanket-covered corpses of their loved ones. One man held his head in his hands and wailed.

The quake's epicenter was outside Bam, and nearby villages were also damaged in the region, which is home to about 230,000 people and lies about 630 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran.

In Iran, quakes of more than magnitude 5 usually kill people because most buildings are not built to withstand earthquakes, although the country sits on several major fault lines and temblors are frequent. Iran has a history of earthquakes that kill thousands of people, including one of magnitude 7.3 that killed about 50,000 people in northwest Iran in 1990.

The United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, asked Iran for permission to send an UNESCO team of experts to the city's historic fortress, which has been under consideration for the agency's list of protected World Heritage Sites.

Parts of the Old City — once an important stop on the Silk Road through Asia — date back 2,000 years, though most of the structures were built in the 15th to 18th centuries.

Khatami declared three days of mourning. "God willing, we will try even harder to meet your needs," he said in a phone call to Kerman's governor that was aired on television.

Shocked Iranians mobilized to help. In Tehran, volunteers jammed a blood donation center. In Fars province, neighboring Kerman, the governor asked for donations of blankets and food and for volunteers to head to Bam to help in relief work.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=4&u=/ap/20031227/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_earthquake

[DoctorZIn]

Martial Law Instated in Kerman Province

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Dec 27, 2003

State of Martial Law has been instated in Kerman Province and especially in the cities of Bam and Jiroft destroyed by the deadly quake.

Thousands of security forces have been deployed under the command of the infamous General Ghalibaf, sent to Bam, in order to control the desastrous situation and to repress the spontaneous and sporadic protest actions which have followed the quake.

Many residents and first voluntary rescuers are blaming the regime for the increase of the Death Toll which has reached over 30,000 individuals.

Tens of protesters have been arrested as they were shouting slogans against the regime and its leaders. Protesters were qualifying the regime's leaders as "bunch of thiefs and murderers".

The situation on the ground has been reported as dramatic and apocalyptic.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_4230.shtml

[DoctorZIn]

70,000 Dead and Wounded According to Health Minister

December 27, 2003
Misna.org
Misna

The earthquake that devastated the city of Bam in southeast Iran yesterday morning may have killed or wounded as many as 70,000 people, the Iranian health minister Massoud Pezechkian has told the news agency ‘AFP’.

“We currently estimate that 65-70 per cent of the inhabitants of Bam were killed or wounded” when their houses collapsed, the politician said.

This would take the number of casualties to around 70,000. “The problem is that we have not recorded the number of dead and wounded exactly. The figure that we have represents the total number of people involved, which is very, very high,” added the minister.

Pezechkian concluded by inviting the international community to send medicines and equipment, but not volunteers.

One hundred thousand people lived in Bam before the earthquake, which measured 6,3 on the Richter scale, while the same number again populated the province. Earlier, government sources put the death toll at around 20,000, with 30,000 victims.

http://www.misna.org/news.asp?lng=1&id=103560