Two women rescued from Iran rubble
Rescuers pulled two young women alive, almost unscathed, from beneath the rubble of a mountain village in southeastern Iran yesterday, but they also uncovered dozens of corpses as the death toll from Tuesday's earthquake headed towards 550. Thousands...
Rescuers pulled two young women alive, almost unscathed, from beneath the rubble of a mountain village in southeastern Iran yesterday, but they also uncovered dozens of corpses as the death toll from Tuesday's earthquake headed towards 550.
Thousands of survivors of the magnitude 6.4 quake, many angry at the slow pace of relief efforts, faced another bleak night on freezing and rain-soaked slopes amid the mud and rubble that used to be their homes.
Iran's government, which initially said it could cope without foreign assistance, changed tack and said it would take help from abroad. The earthquake came just 14 months after a devastating quake hit the desert citadel city of Bam, in the same province, killing 31,000 people.
Despite earlier claims that it had no need of foreign assistance, Iran's government requested and received about $180,000 worth of tents and blankets from Japan.
US President George W. Bush, who accuses Iran of supporting terrorism and making atomic arms, also expressed "sincere condolences" and promised to offer "concrete help".