Foreign teams aid Iran quake rescuers

International rescue workers hacked desperately through flattened debris for survivors and cemeteries overflowed in Iran's ancient Silk Road city of Bam yesterday after an earthquake that killed at least 20,000 people. US President George W. Bush, who once branded Iran part of an "axis of evil", and other world leaders rushed to offer the Islamic Republic whatever help they could.

Many were still pinned under the rubble of the shattered city of 80,000, their chances of survival ebbing away with time. Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari said the hordes of homeless survivors should be sheltered in tents by last night. But witnesses thought this was an unlikely prospect with so many of them still cowering under blankets at nightfall.

President Mohammad Khatami has admitted Iran cannot cope on its own. The official IRNA news agency quoted Mousavi-Lari 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 said.

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. If the figures are finally confirmed, the Bam quake was the world's worst in terms of death toll in more than 10 years. Some 19,700 people were killed in January 2001 when a Richter 7.7 earthquake hit the Indian state of Gujarat.

Reuters 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.

Fatemeh, 35, was burying her two children. "I am burying myself in this grave," she said. Taher, 50, was inconsolable, sobbing "wake up, wake up" to the corpse of his teenage son Farzad.

About 70 per cent of Bam, a popular tourist spot some 1,000 km southeast of the capital Tehran with an historic citadel and other centuries-old buildings, was levelled. Exhausted, dust-covered rescue worker Omid Alipour said his team had dug out only three injured survivors during the night. "We don't have anything, just our bare hands," he said.

Reporters said roads to the 120,000 or so people in the quake-stricken outlying villages had been broken by the force of the tremors but some aid workers were setting out on foot. Television showed the injured, bloodied and bandaged, being crammed into aircraft and flown to cities around the country. It said 3,000 had been flown to hospitals in other cities.

The Interior Ministry confirmed yesterday 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 US 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 yesterday. "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. A large part of the ancient citadel was destroyed, Kerman province governor Mohammad Ali Karimi said. Dating back 2,000 years, it had sprawling fortifications, towers, stables and a mosque. It was the city's main tourist attraction.

"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. Bam is on the old Silk Road route between China and Europe used by merchants and travellers for centuries. It is noted for its inns, a theological school and bazaars.

The country's sharply divided press was united in grief across the conservative and reformist spectrum. The reformist Sharq newspaper called for builders to observe widely flouted construction laws.

Meanwhile, some 600 prisoners were on the run in Bam after their jail crumbled in the massive earthquake, local officials told Reuters yesterday. "The prison partly collapsed. Some of the prisoners were killed, others escaped," said Assadollah Iranmanesh, spokesman for a regional emergency committee. "Places particularly prone to looting are secure."

Another official also played down fears the felons would cause trouble. "They are probably busy looking for their families," he said. The agency quoted a judiciary official as saying 700 prisoners from the jail had been released "on leave".

Earthquakes are a regular occurrence in Iran, an oil-producing country criss-crossed by major faultlines. Some 35,000 people were killed in 1990 when earthquakes of up to 7.7 on the Richter scale hit the northwest of Iran.