Aid workers in Iran yesterday pleaded for more clothing, blankets and medicines for tens of thousands left bereaved and homeless by Friday's earthquake that killed up to 30,000 people.
As search and rescue teams began to abandon the hunt for more survivors trapped beneath the rubble in the ancient Silk Road city of Bam 1,000km southeast of Tehran, relief workers said operations have moved into a new phase.
"We're in a transition period from search and rescue to humanitarian assistance," Jesper Lund, team leader of UN Disaster And Assessment Coordination (UNDAC), which was coordinating relief efforts from a military base outside of Bam.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Friday's pre-dawn quake, which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale and killed entire families while they slept, was the deadliest in the world for over a decade.
The scale of the disaster, which toppled virtually every building in Bam and outlying villages, has prompted swift pledges of aid, even from several countries which have shaky ties with the Islamic Republic.
Washington, which has labelled Tehran an "axis of evil" member and is in turn referred to as the "Great Satan" by hardliners in Iran, has sent several planeloads of medical and humanitarian supplies as well as relief experts.
The US military planes, which began arriving at the weekend, were the first to land in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Six of Iran's Arab Gulf neighbors late on Monday pledged US$400 million to help Tehran with relief and rebuilding. Non-Arab Iran has had uneasy relations with many of its Gulf neighbors since the 1979 revolution although ties have improved in recent years.
Despite the massive international response, aid workers said more was needed to assist an estimated 100,000 people left homeless and thousands more injured in the quake.
"There has been quite a bit of aid coming in but there is not enough. There are still gaps to be filled," said Rob MacGillivray, emergency adviser for Save The Children at the Bam relief center.
President Mohammad Khatami, whose government has come under fire for failing to enforce building controls and foresee the scale of such a disaster, was to hold a cabinet meeting in the provincial capital of Kerman yesterday to discuss the relief effort.
Some 28,000 bodies have been recovered and buried so far. Many of them were placed in mass graves excavated by mechanical diggers with little ceremony and no time for full identification.
Amid the grim scenes of death and destruction there was a sliver of joy on Monday when rescuers announced a six-month-old baby girl had been pulled alive from the life-saving embrace of her dead mother beneath the wreckage of her home.
But most rescue teams, who dashed to Iran from 28 countries, had packed up by yesterday morning, despairing of finding any more survivors beneath homes whose mud-brick walls had crumbled to fine dust, leaving no pockets of air to breathe.
"We're going home," said Austrian Rene Nobis.
He said his Austrian search and rescue team had only recovered 40 dead bodies since arriving in Bam.
Others set off to give it one last try, but with low expectations.
"Maybe we will be lucky. But I think it will be the last day to find somebody," said Kakha Chikhradze, a doctor working with a Georgian search and rescue team.
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