20,000 feared dead in quake

The world is responding to Iran’s plea for help after an earthquake devastated a historic city, killing up to 20,000 people as they slept.

Survivors and rescue teams are struggling in sub zero temperatures to find anyone still alive under the rubble that was, until the early hours, the bustling city of Bam.

Official figures say 6,000 people were killed and 30,000 injured – most of them critically – in the south-eastern city.

But Iranian MP Hasan Khoshrou said that 10,000 have been killed and other officials doubled that figure.

He said people at the scene had told him the devastation was “beyond imagination.”

The government said 70% of houses in the city of 80,000 people had been destroyed.

A Turkish TV reporter in Bam said it looked at if the city had been bombed.

Thousands who survived were left homeless and are spending the night in the open in freezing weather.

The Iranian government asked for international assistance – particularly search and rescue teams.

The 6.3 magnitude quake hit Bam, 630 miles from the capital Tehran, at 5:28am local time (1.58am Irish time).

“The quake hit the city when most of the people were in bed, raising fears that the death toll may go higher,” said Khoshrou.

Hardly a building remained upright in the old quarter of Bam.

In one street, only a wall and the trees were standing. People were carried away the injured, while others sat sobbing next to the corpses of their loved ones.

Mohammed Karimi, in his 30s, lost his wife and four-year-old daughter.

“This is the day of resurrection. There is nothing but devastation and debris,” he said as he held his dead daughter in his arms.

“Trucks are hauling bodies to bury them in mass graves.”

President Mohammad Khatami attended an emergency meeting and urged the entire country to help the victims of the quake. He declared three days of mourning for what he called “national tragedy.”

The government told the UN it needs medicines, tents and generators.

Because hospitals in the area had been destroyed, the government sent transport planes to evacuate the wounded for treatment elsewhere.

Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari said 70% of residential Bam had been destroyed and there was no electricity.

“Our immediate two priorities are dealing with the people who are trapped and transferring the wounded to other areas,” he said.

He said four C-130 Hercules transport planes had ferried wounded out of the area.

Mousavi said setting up tents was a priority because of the cold – night-time temperatures were expected to drop to minus 6 C (21 F) – and the large-scale destruction of buildings.

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

“Many people are buried under the rubble,” Karimi said. “We do not have any precise information.

What is certain is that the old structure of the city has been totally destroyed.”

Hardly any buildings in Iran are built to withstand earthquakes, although the country sits on several major faultlines and tremors are frequent.

A Turkish TV reporter said Bam looks as if it had been hit by a bomb. “People are trying to pull bodies out of the rubble. All windows are smashed,” he said.

“People have started walking toward Kerman – many complaining of a lack of aid,” the reporter added. Kerman city is 120 miles north-west of Bam.

About 500 people were evacuated to hospitals in Kerman, where they were in critical condition, officials said.

Many injured lay on the floor as doctors attended to more critical patients.

Bam’s two hospital’s were reported to have been destroyed by the quake.

Iran’s Health Ministry appealed to international organisations to fly in aid. Ministry official Mohammad Ismail Akbari said the priority requirements were disinfectants, equipment to test if water is contaminated, water pumps and electricity generators.

Iran’s Red Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, said rescue and relief teams had been sent to Bam from numerous provinces, including Tehran.

“We are doing everything we can to rescue the injured and unearth the dead,” said regional Governor Karimi.

Relief teams set up their headquarters in a public square in Bam because their offices in the governor’s building had been ruined, Karimi told state radio.

The citadel of Bam was destroyed. The oldest part of the fortress dates to about 2,000 years ago, but most was built in the 15th to 18th centuries. It attracts thousands of tourists a year.

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

Shocked Iranians mobilised to help their countrymen.

In Tehran, volunteers jammed a blood donation centre one doctor said 650 people were on the waiting list.

Ministries set up bank accounts to donate funds, and Fars province asked for donations of blankets and non-perishable food items, and asked all males under 25 to go to neighbouring Kerman to help in the relief work.

State media said the quake had also damaged towns and villages around Bam. Khoshrou, the area’s MP. Said the population of the Bam region is about 230,000.

The quake had several aftershocks, one of magnitude 5.3. In Iran, quakes of more than magnitude 5 usually kill people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered rescue teams to fly to Iran and they left tonight.

Britain, Greece, France, Turkey and Germany all offered assistance.

In a second earthquake, a tremor of magnitude 4 rocked the west Iranian town of Masjid Soleiman at 8:10 a.m. The town is 600 miles north-west of Bam.

Iran has a history of earthquakes that kill thousands of people.

In 1990, a 7.3 quake killed about 50,000 people in north-west Iran. In 1978, a quake of magnitude 7.7 killed about 25,000 people in the north-east