Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 26, 1990 TAG: 9006260039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RUDBAR, IRAN LENGTH: Medium
Helicopters flew over the stricken area spraying disinfectant because of fears the unburied bodies would cause an outbreak of disease. U.S. health experts said this was unlikely.
An Iranian Red Crescent team pulled a one-year-old girl alive from the debris of her home in the mountain village of Kelishom, 30 miles east of here, according to French and Iranian rescue teams operating in the area.
The team had been told the infant was dead, but found her alive on her bed after digging into the bedroom of her house, the Iranian rescuers said.
At least 62 aircraft carrying foreign aid from dozens of countries landed at the capital's Mehrabad airport Monday, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Sixty-eight planeloads arrived Sunday, Tehran radio said.
Aid reportedly was also coming from the unlikeliest of sources: author Salman Rushdie, who is living under an Iranian death threat for alleged blasphemy against Islam in his novel, "The Satanic Verses." Rushdie is donating $8,650 to a relief fund, the British newspaper The Independent reported.
One cargo jet from the United States brought in 84,000 pounds of medical, food and other supplies from AmeriCares, a private relief organization. It was the first private U.S. relief effort after 11 years of troubled relations between Washington and Tehran.
At the United Nations, Iran's envoy said Monday that Tehran would not accept donations from Israel or South Africa. But it is accepting aid from the United States, which it once condemned as the "Great Satan."
"The Iranian people do not have any problem with the American people," said the envoy, Kamal Kharrazi. "This tragedy may create a better atmosphere for relations between Iranian and American peoples."
Saudi Arabia, which cut ties with Iran in April 1988, said it would send 40 planeloads of supplies. Even Iraq, Iran's foe during eight years of war, offered help.
The earthquake Thursday leveled 342 cities, towns and villages across northern Iran and killed 50,000 people, by some estimates. About 200,000 were injured, and countless others were believed lying beneath tons of debris.
Tehran University's Geophysics Center reported that 22 aftershocks, some as strong as 5.5 on the Richter Scale, had occurred in the region the last 24 hours. Sunday, the center reported 360 tremors since Thursday.
The aftershocks caused landslides that blocked roads, seriously hampering rescue and relief operations in Gilan and Zanjan provinces. The two provinces were the hardest hit in the earthquake, which registered 7.3 to 7.7 on the Richter scale.
Official reports have estimated a half-million people were left homeless.
A landslide Monday blocked a 35-mile stretch of road linking the ravaged town of Rudbar with the Caspian Sea coast, a crucial relief supply route. Relief convoys were snarled in traffic jams on other roads that were covered by boulders.
But IRNA reported that "non-stop rescue operations" continued. Recovery workers aided by police sniffer dogs pulled bodies from the rubble, it said.
IRNA said thousands of panic-stricken inhabitants, fearing more buildings would crumble, spent the night outdoors.
IRNA also reported that a leading religious authority, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Golpayegani, ruled that victims "can be buried in mass graves in circumstances where religious rites are impossible to observe."
by CNB