Family members carry their dead from the rubble after an earthquake struck the Iranian city of Bam, yesterday, killing over 15,000 people and injuring thousands of others.
-Reuters photoBAM, Iran (Reuters):
A PRE-DAWN earthquake killed more than 15,000 people in Iran yesterday and injured thousands more in the ancient Silk Road city of Bam, government officials said.
About 70 per cent of the buildings in the historic city, a popular tourist spot some 1,000 km (600 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran, had collapsed and many people were feared trapped under the rubble, state television said.
Bam was without water, electricity or gas; and as night fell temperatures headed below freezing. Residents set fires to stay warm and made torches from palm branches for light as they dug with bare hands for survivors.
Bawling infants and dazed adults gathered in city squares, huddling against the cold under woollen blankets. Rubble-strewn pavements were lined with injured, some on intravenous drips.
State media said two hospitals had collapsed, crushing many of the staff, and the remaining hospitals were full. The injured were being ferried to neighbouring towns.
"No-one knows the exact toll, but what I know is that more than 15,000 have been killed," a government official told Reuters. Another official confirmed the figure.
Mohammad Ali Karimi, Governor of Kerman province, where Bam is located, was said to have given the figure in a telephone conversation with President Mohammad Khatami.
Ali Shafiee, Governor of Bam, told state TV: "The city of Bam must be built from scratch".
Reuters witnesses said many houses had been flattened.
Distraught relatives wept next to shrouded corpses. Hundreds of bodies were bundled into trucks. Mechanised diggers hollowed out trenches where the dead were buried quickly without rites.
"I have lost all my family. My parents, my grandmother and two sisters are under the rubble," said Maryam, 17.
One old woman, disconsolate with grief, smeared her face with dirt, only able to utter: "My child, my child".
Iranian television said around 30,000 people were injured in and around the city, which, with its environs, had a population of some 200,000 people.
Angry people accused the government of doing nothing to help them and said they were still without tents, water and heating.
Witnesses said the road to Bam was choked with ambulances and people desperate to find family members.
Houses in the date-growing area of Bam are traditionally made from mud-brick, making them vulnerable to earthquakes.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told Reuters Iran urgently sought sniffer dogs, blankets and medicines from the international community.
Russia, Germany, Poland, France, Italy, the United States and other countries were sending help, including doctors, medical supplies and rescuers with sniffer dogs and special equipment to locate survivors buried beneath rubble.
A large part of Bam's ancient citadel was destroyed, Karimi said. Dating back 2,000 years, it held fortifications, towers, buildings, stables and a mosque.
Bam is located on the old Silk Road route between China and Europe used by merchants and travellers for centuries. A major tourist magnet, it had inns, a gymnasium, a theological school and bazaars, according to tourism Web sites.
The quake struck at about 5:30 a.m. when most residents were asleep. Earthquakes are a regular occurrence in Iran, which is crossed by several major faultlines.
In June last year, a tremor measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale hit northern Iran, killing at least 229 people and injuring more than 1,000.
Some 35,000 people were killed in 1990 when earthquakes of up to 7.7 on the Richter scale hit the northwest of the country. Tehran was hit by a quake of about seven on the Richter scale in 1830.
