Focus on relief in aftermath of Kerman quake

The earthquake that struck Iran's southeastern Kerman province early on Tuesday turned the mountain village of Houtkan into mud, killed many of its inhabitants and reduced the survivors to homelessness and destitution. The village was almost totally destroyed and, because it is so isolated, help has been slow to reach the stricken community. On Thursday, the weather was very cold and a heavy mist hung over Houtkan, lending an already nightmarish scene a surreal and ghostly quality. The steep hillside to which the village used to cling was a mass of broken walls, bent telephone poles and twisted metal door and window frames, poking out at odd angles from the thick mud. Some rooms were recessed into the hillside and could be seen completely intact amid the devastation, with a family's possessions left neatly as they were the night before the quake. Livestock wandered up and down the hillside and along ruined alleys seeking food. Survivors tried to lift a dead cow from the pathway. RESCUE TURNS TO RELIEF More than 500 people are now believed to have died in the earthquake, the Iranian government says. But it will take more time to establish the exact number of deaths as rescue workers are hampered in their search for bodies by continuing poor weather in the mountains. However, the relief operation is well under way. Tents were provided to most families in the more easily accessible areas on the first day of the earthquake and to others on the second day. "I was making tea and then I realised everything was shaking," Fatemeh Mansouri, a middle-aged woman who lost a daughter in the disaster, told IRIN. "I managed to get my son out of the house but my young daughter was trapped inside by her legs. I knew where she was and so I lifted the rubble off her." As Mansouri spoke, another son was erecting a tent behind her. He had travelled from Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf when he heard the news. She stood forlornly in the road pointing at the crumbled remains of her house and shouted: "God, God, God!" The tremor measured 6.4 on the Richter scale and was quite deep, reducing the violence at the surface. However, rescue workers have said the death toll was high due to what they described as poor building techniques. After the Bam earthquake in December 2003, only 250 km southeast in the same province, experts said the more than 30,000 deaths were partly the result of the widespread use of traditional mud bricks in house construction. POOR CONSTRUCTION LED TO HIGH DEATH TOLL As the steel and concrete twisted and cracked, the bricks crumbled onto the inhabitants, choking them with dust and filling air pockets in which survivors might have lived for a few days. After the Kerman quake, rain made the mud heavier, crushing those inside, and reducing the flow of air into the rubble. However, two young girls were reported to have been rescued from the debris the day after the earthquake in Houtkan. Many others were only partially trapped and were rescued by frantic relatives and soldiers in the hours immediately after the quake.

Scores of people were buried under their homes

Their story was exceptional. Almost all of those who were buried under the rubble for more than a few hours died there. Down the steep muddy slope that is all that remains of Houtkan, Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) workers and soldiers dug with long spades into craters in the rubble. They wore bright bibs, surgical masks and rubber gloves. Sifting through the mud and dust in what had been somebody's kitchen, they uncovered some blue cloth: the shirt of a man. As they dug further, a hand could be seen. Workers and soldiers leant down to pull the body free, dragging the head and upper torso of an elderly man clear of the rubble. Livid and red bruises were clearly visible on his back and his shirt sleeve was stained dark with blood. The smell was powerful. Waiting soldiers passed down a bright red blanket as an IRCS worker tried to free the corpse's legs. The body was lifted onto the blanket and from there to a blue plastic stretcher that had been carried down by the IRCS. A team carried it away as the soldiers kept digging. More bodies were thought to lie under the rubble in the same house. The old man's body, still wrapped in the blanket, was taken to the village entrance where a line of others were being identified or tagged before being carried away for burial in the nearby town of Zerand. The body of a child, arms held behind his head, was laid down. An old man identified him and another body next to him. The name Hossein Golestani was written on a stiff leg in permanent marker. HELPING THE SURVIVORS Poor weather has made rescue conditions more dangerous. Sinking to their shins in mud, rescue workers picked their way across the treacherous rubble. Holes opened up underfoot where what had appeared to be a pathway was revealed as the ceiling of a weakened room. The mist cut visibility to less than 50 metres at times and light showers of hailstones fell on the freezing ground. Poor visibility had made it difficult for helicopters to assess the damage in Houtkan quickly. Heavy rain on the day of the quake turned the road to thick mud, up which vehicles struggled to travel. In places, streams ran across the road, making travel more difficult. Because the road is so mountainous, it was blocked in many places by landslides and falling boulders. These were not cleared until midday on 22 February, depriving the village of help for more than six hours after the quake.

Thousands of people have been left homeless

Down the road, the village of Islamabad was also badly damaged by the earthquake, but was one of the first to be reached. Survivors there were given tents the same afternoon but were still waiting for blankets and food the following day. "All we've had today is a little tea. We have only had help from God," whispered an old woman whose voice was hoarse from screaming. "It is so cold. The children will fall ill." She was standing in the courtyard of a ruined house down an alleyway where all the houses were destroyed. A green IRCS tent stood in the courtyard under a pomegranate tree. A glance inside the rooms flanking the courtyard revealed large chunks of plaster fallen to the floor and lying atop blankets and mattresses thrown aside by the sleeping occupants as they rushed for safety. Some rooms are completely demolished. It was quickly obvious to rescue workers as they rushed to the area around Zerand, 75 km northeast of the provincial capital and the largest town in the quake zone, that the operation would be mainly one of relief. Iran's practised emergency services rushed large numbers of soldiers and IRCS volunteers into the area. By mid-morning, teams were working to sift through rubble in many of the villages. In Dahouyyeh, which was badly damaged, there was a functioning medical centre established within hours. Zerand itself suffered only minor damage in the quake. INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE Two large flights were chartered from the capital, Tehran, to bring supplies of tents, blankets and food to the stricken area on the afternoon of the quake. Other supplies were brought overland from Bam, where services still have large stockpiles of excess humanitarian aid left over from the earthquake there. Some international aid groups also diverted from Bam when they heard news of the quake, including the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), France's Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Czech-based People in Need and Switzerland's Medair. "We got there a few hours after the quake and the immediate relief operation was very good," said Hani Mansourian, a UNICEF child protection officer from Bam, who had driven with the UNICEF team after receiving a call on the morning of the quake. "Hot food was being served, which was amazing. The army was there, helicopters were flying overhead. And all the people in charge had been working on the Bam earthquake too, so they were very experienced." However, there was some confusion as the government launched a belated appeal for international help to provide some basic services such as latrines and other sanitation facilities after initially declining offers. The government has faced some internal criticism over its handling of the aftermath of Bam including the delays in developing a long-term reconstruction plan. And Iran has said it has not been provided with much of the aid and soft loans pledged by donor countries after that disaster.