Iranians mourn 220 lost in earthquake
ABDAREH, Iran (AP) – In a matter of seconds, Zahra Gholamzadeh lost her husband, son and home. On Sunday, she stood on the rubble of her mud house, recalling how her life was suddenly turned upside by the Iranian earthquake that killed hundreds of people. “It had a big sound. The horrible sound remains in my ears,” she said, sobbing uncontrollably, her surviving son and daughter by her side.
Gholamzadeh was one of the survivors of Saturday’s magnitude-6 earthquake that flattened nearly 100 villages in northwestern Iran.
“We lost our dear ones and all we had. In a few seconds, we became miserable. We were never rich, but at least we had something. Now, everything has become dirt,” she said.
State-run media lowered the death toll in the remote quake zone from earlier estimates of 500 or more, now saying at least 220 were killed. However, estimates from individual villages indicate the number could be higher.
Official Iranian media has reported that more than 1,600 people had been injured. Relief workers have put the figure at 1,300.
The quake struck at 7:30 a.m. when most people were in their homes of brick, stone or mud. It left thousands homeless, mainly in the Qazvin provincial town of Bou’in-Zahra, the quake’s epicenter, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Desert and hills mark Qazvin’s terrain. The area, inhabited by tens of thousands of people, is rural but is home to many small factories and businesses producing goods ranging from plastics to medicine and food.
Among the hardest-hit places was Abdareh, a tiny village some 140 miles west of Tehran. The quake toppled its mosque, demolished 40 homes and killed at least 20 people.
In nearby Changooreh, only two of the village’s 100 houses were intact. The death toll there was at least 120.
At a cemetery overlooking Abdareh, survivors huddled in groups, most covered in dust and dazed with grief. Men, women and children wailed as they placed the dead in rows of graves made by bulldozers.
“There is nothing left to live for,” cried Majid Torabi, 16, who lay his head in the dirt beside his parents’ freshly dug graves.
About 45 families live in Abdareh, a village surrounded by hills and orchards. A bulldozer driver, his face obscured by dust, said he had retrieved at least 10 bodies from the rubble.
Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari toured the village of Qanuraeh and expressed the government’s condolences. The Iranian Red Crescent Society said nearly 100 villages were badly damaged or destroyed.
“Our job was to recover the bodies, but from today we have to think of reconstruction during the summer, before it gets cold in the winter,” Lari said.
The quake hit the provinces of Gilan, Tehran, Kurdestan, Qazvin, Zanjan and Hamedan and was followed by several aftershocks, the state news agency said. It was felt in Tehran – Iran’s capital – but there were no reports of damage there.
Overnight, survivors lit small fires amid the rubble of villages to warm themselves against low temperatures.
A cry of “Allahu Akbar” – God is great – rose from a small crowd of rescue workers and Changooreh villagers as the bodies of a woman and her 10-year-old daughter – still in her mother’s embrace – were found beneath the rubble.
About 40 of the 280 inhabitants of Garm Darreh village in western Hamedan province were killed. About 80 people died in the Qazvin area village of Kisse-Jin.
Major earthquakes are not uncommon in Iran, which lies on a major seismic line. Moderate tremors are reported in various parts of the country almost daily.
In May 1997, a magnitude-7.1 quake killed 1,500 people in the country’s north. In February of that year, 72 people died in a quake in the northeast.
In June 1990, a quake measuring between 7.3 and 7.7 killed at least 40,000 people, and a 1963 quake in the Qazvin area killed 12,225 people.
The Iranian government declared three days of mourning in the quake-struck provinces and established a bank account for public donations.
Pope John Paul II sent his prayers to the victims of the earthquake Iran on Sunday and called for a “generous” international response. Germany offered $485,000 in relief money.
President Bush offered condolences Saturday to victims “affected by this tragic event.”
Iran and the United States have no diplomatic ties and relations are marked by hostility. But Iran has accepted U.S. aid following past natural disasters.