Iran earthquake toll may rise to 40,000

TEHRAN, Iran — The death toll from the devastating earthquake that struck the southern Iranian city of Bam on Friday morning rose to at least 25,000, city officials said Saturday, with many more tens of thousands injured.

There were grim but uncertain predictions that the death toll — now at about an eighth of the population of the district — might rise.

"As more bodies are pulled out, we fear that the death toll may reach as high as 40,000," said Akbar Alavi, the governor of Kerman, the provincial capital, according to The Associated Press. "An unbelievable human disaster has occurred."

"Five thousand people were killed on the spot, and there are 20,000 people under the rubble," said Iradj Sharifi, rector of the faculty of medicine in the city of Kerman, about 120 miles northwest of Bam.

The interior minister, Abdolvahed Moussavi Lari, said on state television from Bam: "The city is ruined. More than 70 percent of it is destroyed."

On Saturday, the tens of thousands of injured people crowded field hospitals or lay helplessly in the streets, while survivors and rescuers dug frantically to try to save those still trapped. Aftershocks jolted the area repeatedly.

The earthquake, which Iranian agencies measured at 6.3 and U.S. agencies at 6.6, rocked Bam, 610 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran, at 5:28 a.m. Friday. It lasted 12 seconds, state television said, adding that most last only 5 seconds.

Volunteer rescue workers from around the country hurried into Bam, some equipped with shovels, some joining survivors in clawing through the rubble barehanded.

International rescue teams began arriving with sniffer dogs and detection equipment. One dog team dug out 20 survivors, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

The use of dogs, which are considered unclean by most Muslims, was a sticking point in rescue efforts in a 1990 earthquake that struck northwestern Iran, killing about 50,000 people.

Government spokesmen announced that foreign aid workers would not need entry visas.

"We need help — otherwise we will be pulling corpses, not the injured, out of the rubble," Brigadier Mohammadi, commander of the army in southeastern Iran, told state television.

Hurriedly constructed field hospitals were overwhelmed with casualties, and many of the injured lay in the streets. State television said at least 3,000 people had been flown to hospitals in other cities, and it showed film of bloodied victims being loaded onto planes.