December 28, 2003	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 4, 1424

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BAM, Dec 27: The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Iran rose into the tens of thousands on Saturday as the international community mobilized a major relief operation.

Health Minister Massoud Pezeshkian said 65 to 70 per cent of the population of Bam, the ancient city that took the brunt of the disaster, had either been killed or injured in the catastrophe, implying that the casualty figure could be as high as 70,000.

The minister did not venture to give a breakdown of the casualties from Friday’s massive quake.

“The problem is that we have not registered exactly who has been killed and who has been injured. What we have is a single casualty toll that is very, very high,” said the minister.

The scale of the disaster overwhelmed emergency services, who were unable to reach large areas of the quake zone.

Planes from Switzerland, Britain, Germany, Italy and Belgium arrived in the provincial capital of Kerman on Saturday morning, but hopes for those buried under the rubble were already diminishing after temperatures plummeted below zero degrees Celsius.

More than a dozen European countries, along with China, Japan, South Korea and the United States were mobilizing aid, as well as the United Nations and the Red Cross.

Heiner Gloor, of Swiss Rescue, said “I’ve never seen anything like it. It is a picture of total devastation.

“It is a huge area which has been hit. For the moment, the focus is on Bam, but there are outlying villages which we still haven’t got to.”

State television said no rescue teams had been able to go to the small towns and villages around Bam, which are home to a further 110,000 people, and inhabitants had been left to fend for themselves.—AFP