Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 28, 1990 TAG: 9006280029
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TEHRAN, IRAN LENGTH: Medium
Bad weather hampered rescue efforts and was blamed for the crash of a relief helicopter with 14 people on board that hit a mountain in Gilan province. One person died and six others were hurt.
Tens of thousands of people took shelter in tent cities set up with the help of foreign volunteers. About a half-million people were left homeless by Thursday's quake.
Officials at the Red Crescent, the Moslem equivalent of the Red Cross, said they counted 40,000 dead and 60,000 injured. Government officials earlier had said 50,000 people died and 200,000 were injured.
A Red Cross official said Tuesday that the death toll could reach 70,000.
More than 205 people hurt in the quake died of their injuries Wednesday in hospitals in Zanjan province, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Meanwhile, IRNA said a 19-year-old volunteer died Wednesday in Rudbar. A wall collapsed on Iraj Amjadian, a student at the police academy, when a mild quake shook the city as he and other volunteers were trying to pull bodies from the debris of a collapsed building.
Fifty aftershocks struck Tuesday and Wednesday in Gilan province, on the Caspian Sea, and Zanjan, just south, according to Tehran University's Geophysics Center. More than 400 aftershocks have hit since Thursday.
Two field tribunals were being set up in northwestern Iran to try "criminals who are abusing the situation in the area," IRNA said.
The agency did not elaborate, but appeared to refer either to looters or profiteers operating after the quake. The agency said the courts would be set up in Rudbar and Manjil.
A U.S.-financed plane load of relief supplies worth $470,000 was dispatched Wednesday from Basel, Switzerland, U.S. officials said.
The assistance is the second round of American government assistance. Earlier this week, the Red Cross flew to Iran $225,000 worth of U.S.-donated blankets, tents, water jugs and search-and-rescue equipment.
Meanwhile, private U.S. humanitarian organizations have dispatched an additional $1.7 million in assistance for victims of the earthquake, State Department spokeswoman Margaret D. Tutwiler said.
In Tehran, Mohammad Parham, managing director of Iran's Red Crescent societies, said relief operations were approaching the final stages and there was no need for additional foreign doctors and relief workers, IRNA reported.
by CNB