Posted on 12/26/2003 6:31:05 PM PST by blam
'Nothing but devastation and debris' as earthquake strikes Iran
By Angus McDowall in Kerman and Anne Penketh
27 December 2003
Reza Jordani was in shock as he sat at the bedside of his 10-year-old son who was badly injured in the earthquake that devastated the historic Iranian city of Bam.
The quake struck at dawn yesterday, killing thousands as they slept in their mud-brick houses. As dawn broke, Iranian television showed aerial footage of a sea of rubble where the city had stood.
"I don't know what has happened to the rest of my family," said Mr Jordani, a middle-aged soldier, whose entire street was swallowed up by the earthquake. Somehow, he was able to drag his son Adil out from under bricks and rubble and drive the 120 miles to Kerman. Adil, his shirt still covered in blood, now shares a hospital room with six or seven other children. Iranian authorities put the death toll at 20,000 last night but thousands more may have perished under the rubble in Bam. Tens of thousands were injured by the earthquake, which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale.
It smashed the sprawling old town and the deserted medieval fortress, which sits atop a cliff above the city. The towers and domes had formed part of a stunning picture that could have been straight out of The Arabian Nights.
The scale of the human tragedy became clear when the Iranian Interior Minister, Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, said 70 per cent of the densely-populated new town had been destroyed. About 100,000 people live in Bam, a peaceful oasis town sitting tight against the deserts that fringe eastern and southern Iran, about 600 miles south-east of Tehran.
Two hospitals were among the buildings that collapsed in seconds, crushing hospital staff and focusing medical efforts on nearby towns. The injured, many in critical condition, were being flown out of Bam for treatment as the emergency relief effort got under way within hours of the quake. A nurse in Kerman said that 2,000 people were packed into the hospital which had 600 beds. People arriving from the quake zone were being sent away to other cities.
A series of aftershocks were felt throughout the day across Kerman and in the neighbouring province of Khuzestan. Telephone links to Bam were severed, and water and electricity services collapsed. In one street in Bam, only a wall and the trees were left standing. People could be seen carrying away the injured, while others sat sobbing next to the corpses of their loved ones. The streets were quickly choked with ambulances and people desperate to find family members. Squares were packed with crying children and people left without a home, huddled in blankets to protect them from the cold.
Corpses shrouded in blankets were hauled into vans. One old woman, disconsolate with grief, smeared her face with dirt, only able to utter: "My child, my child."
"There is nothing but devastation and debris," said Mohammed Karimi, who spoke as he held his four-year-old daughter dead in his arms. "Trucks are hauling bodies to bury them in mass graves."
Iranian authorities, with a grim experience of dealing with the aftermath of deadly tremors in the quake-prone region, were swift to mobilise rescue operations.
"Our immediate two priorities are dealing with the people who are trapped and transferring the wounded to other areas," the Interior Minister said. President Mohamed Khatami declared a three-day mourning period, calling the quake a "national tragedy".
There were chaotic scenes as rescuers poured into the city to search for survivors, while other inhabitants attempted to flee the city. About 500 people were evacuated to hospitals in Kerman which has become the focal point of the relief effort, led by the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
Temporary camps have been set up to provide basic accommodation for the homeless. The government issued an immediate plea for blood donations and centres have been set up across the country. In the streets of Kerman, local checkpoints were set up by mosques and the non-governmental relief committee to collect donations from citizens.
The points are being inundated with gifts of blankets, food and clothes. One man in charge of a central checkpoint said trucks were leaving every 10 minutes to take the gifts to a central point from where they would be taken to Bam, nearly three hours distant.
The Red Crescent has sent 250 relief workers to the province along with two helicopters, ambulances and other vehicles.
The organisation has provided 5,000 tents as well as medical equipment, food, blankets and sniffer-dogs to search through the rubble."The immediate priority is the search and rescue phase ensuring that survivors are located, given medical attention and transferred to hospital," said an IRCS representative, Mostafa Mohaghegh.
Condolences and offers of help poured in from abroad, including from the Bush administration which had labelled Iran part of the "axis of evil".
"We are offering humanitarian assistance," President Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters. "This is a terrible tragedy," he said. The European Union announced it was earmarking about ¤800,000 (£560,000) in emergency assistance for Iran. Britain is sending two search and rescue teams to Iran, after the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw telephoned his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharrazi to offer condolences.
Some governments such as Belgium, preferred to send donations directly to the Iranian Red Crescent.
As relatives sought news, there were scenes of anguish and frustration at Tehran airport when Iranians attempted to board flights to the stricken area. "Seventeen of my family are dead. Please let me on," one man shouted tearfully.
Some survivors built bonfires in the rubble-strewn streets to stay warm as temperatures dropped. Most sat shivering in their night clothes in the winter cold, because all their possessions were buried in their homes. As night fell, there were unconfirmed reports of looting and sporadic outbreaks of violence in Bam.
Earthquakes are common in Iran and kill thousands each time in a different part of the country. Amazingly, hardly any buildings in Iran are built to withstand quakes, as yesterday demonstrated once again.
Don't put words in my mouth, and read my post again.
No matter who's chanting what (and my sympathies and condolences go out to every one of them), well, not to sound crass or hard-hearted BUT: how long will it be until somebody starts chanting "why isn't the USA doing more?"???
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