Posted on 12/26/2003 2:51:51 AM PST by kattracks
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A severe earthquake devastated the historic city of Bam in southeast Iran on Friday, and a preliminary estimate said the death toll could reach 10,000.Hasan Khoshrou, a legislator for Kerman province where the quake occurred, said there was still no precise number of dead from the magnitude 6.7 quake, but officials working in Bam had given him that figure.
"The quake hit the city when most of the people were in bed, raising fears that the death toll may go higher," he said.
Officials surveying the city of 80,000 people from helicopter said about 60 percent of the city's houses were destroyed, Khoshrou said. Water, power and phone lines were cut. The earthquake struck at about 5:30 a.m.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake's magnitude was 6.7, capable of causing severe damage. It reported an aftershock of magnitude 5.4 about two hours later.
Authorities in Bam, 630 miles southeast of the capital Tehran, put out a call for blood donations.
"Many people have died," Kerman province Gov. Mohammad Ali Karimi told state media. "Many people are buried under the rubble."
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.
Reports said the earthquake destroyed Bam's medieval fortress, a massive, 2,000-year-old structure that sits on a cliff near the city and attracts thousands of tourists each year. The fortress includes scores of ancient mud huts.
"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.
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," television quoted Karimi as saying.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences over the earthquake.
In a telegram to Iranian President Mohamed Khatami, Putin said he was "deeply shocked by an earthquake in Iran that brought numerous victims and destruction" and offered his "sincere condolences to the leadership and people of Iran."
Iran sits on several fault lines and has seen several devastating earthquakes in recent years. A temblor of magnitude 7.3 to 7.7 killed 50,000 people on June 21, 1990, and most recently, a magnitude 6 quake in June, 2002 killed 500 people.
Also Friday, a magnitude 4 quake rocked the west Iranian town of Masjid Soleiman at 8:10 a.m., but no casualties were immediately reported, state television said. Masjid Soleiman is about 600 miles northwest of Bam.
Earthquake in Iran........Bam...........20,000 dead?
A wake up call from Allah?
I believed as you did, not two hours ago.
Richard W.
But it's how I feel now.
They target our civilians, on purpose, because we are "infidels". They justify and seek to achieve genocide.
Pardon me if my tears for their problems become sparse.
Richard W.
It's tough to hold onto when your opponents want to kill all of your people.
All of them.
To the last infant. To the last elderly woman.
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