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Rescue workers have been called off
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BAM,
Iran, December 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Iranian
local officials Monday, December 29, put the number of casualties from
the tragic earthquake at about 30,000 as Iranian President Mohammad
Khatami and several government officials flew in to the
earthquake-stricken town of Bam in southeast Iran.
The
bodies of 25,000 people killed in Friday's earthquake in and around
Bam, in southeastern Iran, have been buried, state radio reported
Monday, quoting a local government official, according to Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
Some
19,500 people were buried by municipal workers in Bam and the rest by
local people in surrounding areas, the radio said.
Meanwhile,
Khatami and other senior Iranian officials flew in to Bam to inspect
damage and rescue work, an AFP reporter said.
His
visit followed one earlier in the day by the country's supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who spent three hours in the town where the
devastating quake hit Friday.
Khatami,
who was wearing a clerical gray tunic, acknowledged on arrival that
"the scale of the tragedy is very high".
"Whatever
we do, it will still be too little," he said. "Hopefully, as
time goes by more aid will arrive."
He
first flew over the city aboard a M-18 helicopter to get an overview
of the damage before touring the town.
Khatami
was joined in Bam by some 10 ministers, some of whom had arrived
shortly after the quake struck early Friday.
Earlier,
Khamenei, accompanied by dozens of bodyguards, also toured the center
of town and its 2,000-year-old citadel which was flattened by the
quake.
"We
share your pain, we have lost our own children, we are going to try to
rebuild Bam, but this time more solidly," Khamenei told
survivors.
Looting
was reported in the town Sunday, but by Monday large numbers of police
and soldiers patrolled the streets and outsiders were prevented from
entering Bam without authorization.
Rescue
Teams Quit, Diggers Move In
On
the ground, hundreds of mechanical diggers rolled into Bam Monday,
signaling the end of major efforts to find survivors and the start of
an urgent bid to recover thousands of corpses amid growing health
fears.
However,
more than 2,000 people had been pulled alive from the rubble, the head
of the Iranian Red Crescent rescue operations, Bijan Daftari, told
AFP.
And
more than 12,000 injured had been evacuated by air to other provinces
since the quake hit on Friday, he added.
But
fears were growing for the health of survivors as a U.N. official
warned that even a common cold or influenza could prove fatal as tens
of thousands spent another night in freezing temperatures and minimal
shelter.
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Khatami in Bam (AFP)
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"When
we talk about a public health problem we are talking about the risk of
a massive outbreak of all kinds of illnesses and diseases," Hamid
Marashi, Iran communications officer for the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF), told AFP.
"These
could be even just the common cold and the flu, which if untreated can
spread very quickly and cause enormous problems for the
survivors."
Residents
were "very vulnerable because they are sleeping out in very cold
temperatures", Marashi said. "Another risk is that of
dysentery because of the poor sanitary environment that people are
living in."
The
body recovery operation only appeared to have covered a small
proportion of the city, which was at the epicenter of the devastating
quake that measured 6.7 on the Richter scale.
Mohammad
Ehsani, a surgeon working in the Imam Khomeini hospital, said: "I
think we can say that the search for survivors has ended. The main
objective now is to take care of the wounded, get shelter, food and
water to the survivors and to bury the dead as quickly and as urgently
as possible.
"All
they have been pulling out from the rubble for the last two days have
been dead bodies."
At
Bam airport, some search and rescue teams who arrived only late Sunday
were returning home and sniffer dog teams were also making plans to
leave.
Iranian
security forces were sealing off access to the city to all traffic
Monday except trucks and cars carrying aid supplies and relief
workers, according to officials in the administrative office of Kerman
province.
The
move was taken to stem the chaotic scenes of looting of badly-needed
humanitarian supplies seen Sunday.
Locals
blamed the looting on villagers from surrounding areas unaffected by
the quake hoping to cash in on the disaster.
Charter
flights landed at Kerman airport Sunday at a rate of one plane every
five minutes, while at Bam airstrip planes were touching down every 15
minutes.
A
U.N. spokesman in Geneva said that "short of a miracle,"
there was no expectation of finding many more survivors.
