Foreign teams aid Iran quake rescuers
Foreign teams aid Iran quake rescuers
Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, Bam, Iran
International rescue workers were scouring flattened debris for
survivors in Iran's shattered ancient Silk Road city of Bam on
Saturday after a violent earthquake killed more than 20,000
people.
U.S. President George W. Bush, who once branded Iran part of
an "axis of evil" developing weapons of mass destruction, as well
as other world leaders rushed to offer whatever help they could
to the Islamic Republic.
President Mohammad Khatami has admitted Iran cannot cope on
its own. The official IRNA news agency quoted Iran's Interior
Ministry as saying assistance would be welcome from every corner
of the globe other than Israel.
Swiss rescuers with sniffer dogs were the first foreign team
to start hunting for trapped survivors, Iranian television
reported.
The pre-dawn quake on Friday also injured about 30,000 people,
state television said. The quake measured 6.3 on the Richter
scale and struck when many people were still asleep.
Witnesses said the city's cemeteries were crammed to
overflowing with fully-clothed corpses and a stench of death was
beginning to pervade the streets.
The International Red Crescent has advised people to wear
gloves and facemasks because of fears of an epidemic.
Taher, 50, was inconsolable, sobbing "wake up, wake up" to the
corpse of his teenage son Farzad.
About 70 percent of Bam, a popular tourist spot some 1,000 km
southeast of the capital Tehran with a historic citadel and other
centuries-old buildings, was leveled.
Many residents were still pinned under the rubble and homeless
survivors awoke from a piercingly cold night huddled under
woollen blankets to find a city without water and power.
Exhausted, dust-covered rescue worker Omid Alipour said his
team had dug out only three injured people during the night.
"We don't have anything, just our bare hands," he said.
Reporters in the city of 80,000 said there was little sign of
any aid heading out to the 120,000 or so people in the quake-
stricken outlying villages.
The Interior Ministry confirmed on Saturday that the death
toll now stood at 20,000, state television said.
Witnesses said hundreds of bodies had already been tipped into
broad trenches hollowed out by mechanical diggers. Bam airport
has been converted into a sprawling, makeshift hospital.
Washington has no official ties with Tehran, but Bush said in
a statement: "We stand ready to help the people of Iran."
A U.S. official said the State Department would be announcing
an aid package soon.
The United Nations, European Union countries, Russia, China,
Poland, Japan, Turkey and others also heeded Iran's appeals for
help from the international community.
They pledged doctors, medical supplies, financial aid, and
rescuers with sniffer dogs and equipment to locate survivors.
A 68-strong British rescue team with sniffer dogs, special
cameras and listening devices touched down in Kerman, near Bam,
early on Saturday.
"We need help, otherwise we will be pulling corpses, not the
injured, out of the rubble," Brigadier Mohammadi, commander of
the army in southeast Iran, told state television.
Rubble-strewn pavements were lined with injured, some on
intravenous drips.
"The city of Bam must be built from scratch," said its
governor Ali Shafiee.
Houses in the date-growing area are traditionally made from
mud-brick, making them vulnerable to earthquakes.