ISLAMABAD, Iran -Rescue teams using dogs and heavy machinery pulled more bodies from the ruins of flattened villages in central Iran yesterday, and officials raised the death toll from a powerful earthquake to at least 500. The count was expected to rise even higher.
A 14-year-old girl was pulled out of the rubble alive and immediately asked if her family survived.
Teams were hampered by bad weather and the mountainous terrain, working in a cold, heavy rain after 0a night during which temperatures dropped below freezing.
Mohammad Javad Fadaei, deputy governor of Kerman province, said more bodies had been discovered. The death toll is now 500
and there's a possibility that the figure will increase he said. At least 900 people were injured.
Many survivors huddled in tents, trying to escape the chill, after the magnitude 6.4 struck early Tuesday, damaging some 40 villages with a combined population of 30,000 people and leaving many homeless. Rescue workers were still digging out survivors and bodies in the three most isolated villages.
In Hotkan, shouts of God is great echoed in the ruined village after rescuers pulled a girl from under the rubble of a destroyed mud house yesterday.
Looking dazed and confused, 14-year-old Zehra Hosseini cried as rescuers pulled her out.
Where are my father and mother brother and sister? They must be alive
she shouted. The rescuers told her they did not find any other survivors in that same area, but she did not appear to hear them.
Earlier in the day, Zehra Mirzaei, 18, was pulled out of the ruins and looked around at what was left of her village: piles of dirt and stone.
This is not my village
this is not Hotkan -I wish I had died with the others
she said, beating her head and chest in grief.
Search efforts also continued in Sarbagh and Dahoueieh, which rescue workers had the most difficulty reaching in the hours after the quake hit. In Dahoueieh, every building except a mosque with a golden dome had collapsed. At least 80 percent of the buildings in Sarbagh were leveled.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed his deep grief and sorrow over the deaths and offered his condolences to the victims' families, urging rescue workers to speed up their efforts.
President Bush also expressed his condolences.
17
Archives
The Associated Press
