10,000 feared dead in Iran earthquake

Up to 10,000 people are feared dead after a devastating earthquake struck in Iran today.

2,000 people have been officially confirmed as dead with fears of many more.

Hasan Khoshrou, who represents Kerman province in parliament, said there was no precise figure, but officials working in the devastated city of Bam had made a preliminary estimate of 10,000 fatalities.

Many people were killed as they slept when the powerful earthquake destroyed 60% of the homes in an Iranian city of 80,000.

“The death toll is very high,” said the governor of Kerman province, Mohammad Ali Karimi.

He gave no figure but added: “Many people are buried under the rubble” in Bam, 630 miles south-east of the capital, Tehran.

Local politician Hasan Khoshrou said people on the scene had told him the devastation was “beyond imagination.”

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

Iranian television said the quake had a magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter scale and its epicentre was near Bam.

The station’s reporter said 60% of the houses in Bam had collapsed. Earlier, state TV reported that all houses made of bricks had collapsed in the region. Damage was reported in three towns around Bam.

The citadel of Bam was destroyed, TV reported. The fortress was built of unbaked bricks about 2,000 years ago and it attracts thousands of tourists a year.

“The historic quarter of the city has been completely destroyed and caused great human loss,” said Mehran Nourbakhsh, chief spokesman for Iran’s Red Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross.

The 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,” said Governor Karimi.

“Authorities have demanded immediate blood donations to save the lives of those who have been admitted to hospital in the provincial capital of Kerman,” a state TV reporter announced.

She said phone links with Bam had been severed. Authorities were in contact with the Bam area through radio and satellite phone links.

IRNA quoted the Red Crescent’s Nourbakhsh as saying water and electricity links to Bam had also been cut.

The quake struck at 5:28am (1.58am Irish time). There were several aftershocks.

In Iran, quakes of more than magnitude 5 usually kill people.

In Washington, the U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.7, which is enough to cause severe damage.

In a second earthquake, a tremor of magnitude 4 rocked the west Iranian town of Masjid Soleiman at 8:10am (4.40am), but no casualties were immediately reported.

The town is 600 miles north-west of Bam.