Thousands of homeless Iranian earthquake survivors huddled against the cold early yesterday, five nights after up to 50,000 people died in one of the worst natural disasters in a decade.
Humanitarian aid poured into Iran as foreign rescue teams headed home, concluding that no one could still be alive beneath the collapsed mud-brick houses of the southeastern Silk Road city of Bam.
Nearly US$500 million has been pledged by dozens of countries.
PHOTO: EPA
Arch-foe Washington, which broke ties with Tehran shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, was at the forefront of the relief effort, sending an 84-strong team and planeloads of blankets, sheeting, medical supplies and water.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami welcomed the US aid, but insisted it would not alter relations between the two countries.
"This has got nothing to do with political issues. The problems in Iran-US relations are rooted in history," he said on Tuesday.
A senior US official said President George W. Bush was considering opening a dialogue with Tehran but would like to see some gesture from Iran first.
Some 30,000 bodies have been recovered since Friday's pre-dawn tremor devastated Bam, which lies some 1,000km southeast of Tehran.
But government officials said the final death toll may climb as high as 50,000.
That would make it the most lethal quake since one in China that killed at least five times that many in 1976.
UN workers said roughly 90 percent of the buildings in the ancient Silk Road city had been destroyed or damaged. Whole families were killed while they slept.
With thousands already buried in mass graves around Bam, many survivors headed out of town, piling their salvaged possessions into pick-up trucks and shared taxis.
Those left behind had to make do with cloth tents against the bitter cold, limited sanitation, a shattered health service and the constant reminder of their tragedy from the surrounding ruins where many corpses are still entombed.
Residents said some children who had survived the quake had died from the bitter cold in the nights immediately afterwards.
"Two children from my family, 12- and 13-years-old, survived the earthquake, but they died from exposure while out on the street some time on Friday night," said one middle-aged woman.
Several forecasts predicted temperatures would hover around 2oC overnight.
"It's very cold and we don't have any equipment for cooking, just tinned food and bread," said Fariba Barami, 30, standing outside a tent near her wrecked home.
After spending two nights under blankets in the open air, she moved with her husband and three children into a tent donated by the Red Crescent.
Reza Eskandari, 62, who lost two sons to the quake, voiced a common complaint that aid was ending up in the wrong hands.
"The aid is very good, but the distribution is bad and many strangers from other towns come and take it," he said.
Relief workers said that while much aid had been pledged, there was an immediate need for blankets, children's clothes, soap, cooking equipment and large cans to store drinking water.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi appealed for donor countries to send pre-fabricated and temporary housing for survivors.
"Now that the emergency situation is almost ending, the issue is to provide people with shelter," he said.
Khatami said Bam would be rebuilt, but seismological studies would be carried out first to find the most suitable areas for construction. The government earmarked US$410 million for the rebuilding effort.
"From now on we should talk about life, about Bam's future," Khatami said.
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