Iran quake victims claim survivors were left in rubble

Villagers in north-western Iran have begun burying their dead after a powerful earthquake ripped through the region on Saturday, killing at least 220 people.

Villagers in north-western Iran have begun burying their dead after a powerful earthquake ripped through the region on Saturday, killing at least 220 people.

While relief teams struggled to reach the injured and a series of aftershocks hampered the search for survivors, angry local people accused the authorities of failing to act quickly enough to reach those trapped in rubble.

"They left people under the rubble, even those who were alive, people who then died," one elderly man said.

Large groups of people shouted protests and threw stones at the convoy of a government minister, Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari, as he toured the mountainous region. The windows of an ambulance in the convoy were smashed.

Meanwhile, health workers sprayed disinfectant over the 100 destroyed or badly damaged villages to stave off the spread of disease in heat that has reached 30C.

The death toll was revised downwards from initial estimates of 500 but the Iranian Red Crescent said that at least 5,000 houses had been destroyed and 25,000 people made homeless. "There was a mistake. The previous number was the number of dead and injured together," a Red Crescent official, Majid Shalviri, told state television.

The epicentre of the quake was in the town of Bou'in-Zahra in Qazvin province. Many of the dead were women, children and elderly people who were still in their mud, stone and brick homes when the earthquake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, struck at about 7.30am. Many of the men were working in the fields.

The area, inhabited by tens of thousands of people, is largely rural but is also home to small factories and businesses producing goods ranging from plastics to medicine and food.

In a cemetery overlooking the small village of Abdareh, about 140 miles west of Tehran, 20 funerals were held yesterday. Wailing echoed through the village. "There is nothing left to live for," said 16-year-old Majid Torabi, who buried both his parents. "One moment they were alive and with me, and the next moment the ground shook and everything got dark. I don't know what to do anymore."

Homeless survivors lit small fires amid the rubble of villages to warm themselves as night-time temperatures plummeted. Many were waiting for food medicine and tents to arrive.

Near Abdareh, in the village of Changooreh, where at least one person in nearly all of the 100 homes was killed, rescue workers with sniffer dogs unearthed bodies from the rubble.

A cry of Allahu Akbar – God is great – rose from a small crowd of rescue workers and villagers digging for bodies as a woman – still clutching her 10-year-old daughter's corpse – was found buried.

Nearby, 20-year-old Hassan Mohammad Aliha sat on the rubble that was his home, beating his head and screaming in mourning for his mother. His sister sat next to him, too dazed to speak.

Villagers in Esmailabad, six miles north of Avaj, near the quake's epicentre, recovered 38 bodies on Saturday. "My child died and the local people helped me to bring him out of the rubble. Only local people are helping," a man in Avaj said.

Tehran said it would accept the help of American non- governmental organisations but stopped short of accepting an offer of aid from President George Bush, who has condemned Iran as part of an "axis of evil", along with Iraq and North Korea.

On Saturday, Mr Bush offered his condolences, saying: "Human suffering knows no political boundaries. We stand ready to assist the people of Iran as needed and as desired."

Iran has received US aid in the past, and the Deputy Interior Minister, Mohammad- hossein Moqimi, said: "The American nation are a kind nation and we welcome any help which comes from them." UN relief agencies have sent teams to the stricken area.

The country's President, Mohammad Khatami, has declared three days of mourning in the provinces of Gilan, Tehran, Kurdestan, Zanjan and Hamedan where the earthquake was felt.

About 40 of the 280 inhabitants of Garm Darreh village in western Hamedan province were killed, and about 80 were killed in the Qazvin area village of Kisse-Jin.

Severe earthquakes are common in Iran, which lies on major fault-lines. In May 1997, a quake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale killed 1,500 people in the north. In February of that year, 72 people died in a quake in the north-east. In June 1990, a quake measuring 7.7 killed at least 40,000 people, and a 1963 quake near Qazvin killed 12,225 people.