- Title: IRAN: RESCUE EFFORTS CONTINUE IN EARTHQUAKE-HIT VILLAGES WEST OF TEHRAN
- Date: 23rd June 2002
- Summary: (W5) CHANGUREH VILLAGE, WEST OF TEHRAN, IRAN (JUNE 23, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. WIDE VIEW DESTROYED HOUSES REDUCED TO RUBBLE 0.06 2. MV: HOUSE WITH COLLAPSED WALLS 0.12 3. SLV: RESCUERS CLEARING WOODEN PLANKS FROM SITE 0.19 4. WIDE VIEW BUILDING WITH WOODEN DEBRIS IN FRONT OF IT 0.25 5. SCU: BODY OF MAN BENEATH RUBBLE
- Embargoed: 8th July 2002 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: CHANGUREH VILLAGE, WEST OF TEHRAN, IRAN
- Country: Iran
- Reuters ID: LVAA3TIZB22NY16JSWI30O4MTYS0
- Story Text: As rescue efforts continued in Iran's earthquake struck
villages, the Red Crescent, along with local volunteers,
continued to search for bodies in one of the worst affected
villages in the mountainous region.
As rescuers picked through rubble to find any remaining
survivors, Iran's Red Crescent on Sunday (June 23) revised the
number of dead in a powerful earthquake in northern Iran to
222 from an earlier estimate of 500 saying some of the injured
had mistakenly been counted among the dead.
"There was a mistake, the previous number was the number
of dead and injured together," state television reported Red
Crescent official Majid Shalviri as saying.
But residents said they believed the death toll was
higher.
Relief workers struggled to treat at least 1,500 injured
people and set up shelter for those made homeless after the
quake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale hit the northern
Qazvin province early on Saturday (June 22).
"In this village more than 30 people died and after the
quake in the afternoon all the Red Crescent and local people
worked together to help bring out the bodies," Deputy of the
Iranian Red Crescent Hussein Ashrafi told Reuters.
The quake razed dozens of villages in north Iran's Qazvin
province, killing many women, children and elderly people
while the men were working in the fields and vineyards.
Police and soldiers joined the rescue effort which
included sniffer dogs but were making slow progress.
Angry survivors pelted an Iranian minister's convoy with
stones on Sunday after accusing authorities of responding too
slowly to save people buried under the rubble of their homes.
Nearly half the homes in the quake struck area have been
levelled leaving survivors unprotected against the soaring
heat of the day and near-freezing mountain temperatures at
night.
At least 1,500 people were injured and the heaviest
casualties occurred close to the epicentre at Avaj, a mountain
town of 3,600 people some 200 km (130 miles) west of the
capital, Tehran.
Mohamed Hussein walked hopelessly amongst the rubble of
the Changureh village, west of Tehran, on Sunday. "I lost my
wife, my two young sons, my house, there is no water," he
said, wailing.
The head of Iran's Red Crescent said relief workers,
food, more than 1,000 tents, 2,500 blankets and mobile
kitchens had been dispatched to the stricken area. Extra
ambulances had been sent, while the army was supplying water
trucks.
In 1997, a tremor measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale
killed 1,560 people in eastern Iran near the Afghan border.
Experts say earthquakes here are infrequent, but that
means pressure in the faultlines builds up, giving them extra
force.
U.S. President George W. Bush, who said he was
saddened by news of the earthquake, extended an offer of
humanitarian aid to Iran, reaching out to a country his
administration has branded part of an "axis of evil".
"Human suffering knows no political boundaries," Bush
said in a statement. "We stand ready to assist the people of
Iran as needed and as desired".
Washington has called Iran part of an "axis of evil"
with Iraq and North Korea and alleged Iran was developing
nuclear weapons and sheltering al Qaeda fighters who fled
Afghanistan.
The United States blames al Qaeda for the hijacked
airliner attacks on New York and Washington on September 11.
Iran's interior minister stopped short of accepting
Bush's offer and instead said Tehran would accept humanitarian
aid from U.S. non-governmental organisations.
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