![]() Hojjat Gharibian, one of hundreds of homeless Iranian survivors, was huddled against the cold with his family in Qasr-e Shirin. More than 70,000 people needed emergency shelter, the head of Iranian Red Crescent said. Iranian authorities acknowledged the relief effort was still slow and patchy. Blocked roads made it hard for rescue workers to reach some remote villages. 26, 2003, devastated the historic city of Bam, 1,000 km southeast of Tehran, killing about 31,000 people.Įlectricity and water was cut off in several Iranian and Iraqi cities, and fears of aftershocks sent thousands of people in both countries out onto the streets and parks in cold weather.Īcross the area, rescue workers and special teams using sniffer dogs and heat sensors searched wreckage. Iran sits astride major fault lines and is prone to frequent tremors. ![]() ![]() Local officials said hundreds of critically wounded people had been transferred to other provinces as Kermanshah's main hospital had been badly damaged. they were killed while they slept," a weeping middle-aged woman told state TV. But then I heard everyone around me screaming: 'Earthquake!'"Īn Iranian local official told state TV that some villages were totally destroyed. "I thought at first that it was a huge bomb. who ran out of her building with her three children. "I was sitting with my kids having dinner and suddenly the building was just dancing in the air," said Majida Ameer. The quake was felt as far south as Baghdad, where many residents rushed from their houses and tall buildings when tremors shook the Iraqi capital. Homes and buildings had extensive structural damage, he said. The district's main hospital was damaged and had no power, Rasheed said, so the injured were taken to Sulaimaniyah for treatment. "The situation there is very critical," Kurdish Health Minister Rekawt Hama Rasheed told Reuters. Iraq's health and local officials said the worst-hit area was Darbandikham district, near the border with Iran, where at least 10 houses had collapsed and the district's only hospital was severely damaged. Kurdish health officials said at least six people were killed in Iraq and at least 68 injured, adding that in northern Iraq Kurdish districts seven were killed and 325 wounded. "Where is the aid? Where is the help?" His family could not spend another night outside in cold weather, he said.Īn Iraqi meteorology official put the quake's magnitude at 6.5, with the epicentre in Penjwin in Iraq's Sulaimaniyah province in the Kurdistan region, close to the main border crossing with Iran. "We need a shelter," a middle-aged man in Sarpol-e Zahab told state TV. ![]() State TV aired footage of damaged buildings, vehicles under rubble and wounded people wrapped in blankets. Tempers frayed in the quake-hit area as the search went on for survivors amidst the twisted rubble of collapsed buildings. The government announced one day mourning on Tuesday. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his condolences on Monday, urging all government agencies to do all they could to help those affected. TV aired footage of some people weeping next to corpses shrouded in blankets. Relief workers said while much aid had been pledged, there was an immediate need for blankets, children's clothes, medicine and large cans to store drinking water. Iranian media reported that a woman and her baby were pulled out alive from the rubble on Monday in Sarpol-e Zahab, the worst hit area with a population of 85,000. The quake also triggered landslides that hindered rescue efforts, officials told state television.Īt least 14 provinces in Iran had been affected, Iranian media reported. Iranian state television said the quake had caused heavy damage in some villages where houses were made of earthen bricks. More than 300 of the victims were in Sarpol-e Zahab county in that province, about 15 km (10 miles) from the Iraq border. The quake was felt in several provinces of Iran but the hardest hit province was Kermanshah. Local officials expected the death toll to climb as search and rescue teams reached remote areas of Iran. Iran's English-language Press TV said more than 450 people were killed and 7,000 were injured when the magnitude 7.3 earthquake jolted the country on Sunday. Rescue teams kept up search operations for dozens trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed houses in towns and villages in the mountainous area of the western province of Kermanshah that borders Iraq. * Casualty toll will rise -Iranian officialsĪNKARA/BAGHDAD, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Thousands of homeless Iranians huddled against the cold late on Monday, a day after at least 450 people were killed in Iran's deadliest earthquake in more than a decade, state TV said. * Iran's gas flow to Iraq not interrupted * Epicentre near border in Iraq's Kurdistan region * Quake kills at least 450 people in Iran, thousands injured The quake was felt as far as Turkey and Israel
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