Iran quake toll now at 500

A senior provincial official has said the death toll from the Iranian earthquake has risen to 500.

Iranian families buried their dead today as rescue teams forged ahead with dogs and heavy machinery, still finding survivors who had weathered freezing temperatures after a powerful quake left villages in ruins.

After working slowly through the night, rescue teams continued their search in a cold, driving rain, their efforts hampered by bad weather and the mountainous terrain.

The toll from the magnitude 6.4 quake, which affected an estimated 30,000 people in several small villages in central Iran, was expected to rise further as rescue teams still did not have a final count from the three most isolated villages in the mountainous region.

Many survivors were left homeless, living in tents and surviving on food rations.

Search efforts were concentrated in Hotkan, Sarbagh and Dahoueieh, which rescue workers had had the most difficulty reaching. Rescue efforts were finished in other villages.

Zehra Mirzaei, 18, looked around her after being pulled out from under the rubble in Hotkan today.

“This is not my village, this is not Hotkan – I wish I had died with the others,” she said, beating her head and chest in grief.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his condolences o the families of the victims and urged rescue workers to speed up their efforts.

The Iranian Army said a crisis centre has been established to assist with relief and that a number of aircraft had been used to haul aid from Tehran to Kerman airport.

Some 40 villages were damaged in the quake, which struck a region 150 miles from Bam, site of a devastating earthquake in December 2003 that killed 26,000 people and levelled the historic city.

The quake was centred on the outskirts of Zarand, a town of about 15,000 people in Kerman province, 600 miles south-east of the capital Tehran.

The tiny villages that dot the central mountains – most of them made in fragile mud brick – were hard hit. In Dahoueieh, every building except a mosque with a golden dome had collapsed. At least 8 % of the buildings in Sarbagh were levelled.

Iranian officials said that the death toll stood at 420, with some 900 injured.

“I lost everything. All my life is gone,” sobbed Asghar Owldi, 60, his face bandaged. His wife and two children were killed.

Iran is located on seismic fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. It experiences at least one slight earthquake everyday on average.