Family members carry their dead from the rubble. (Reuters)

BAM, Iran, 27 December 2003 — A pre-dawn earthquake struck the ancient Silk Road city of Bam in southeastern Iran yesterday, killing up to 20,000 people and injuring 50,000, the Iranian news agency IRNA said.

The earthquake measured 6.7 on the Richter scale.

Mohammad Ali Karimi, governor of Kerman province, where Bam is located, is said to have given the casualty figure in a telephone conversation with President Mohammad Khatami.

Legislator Hasan Khoshrou said a survey undertaken by helicopter indicated that over 70 percent of Bam’s houses had been destroyed.

“The quake hit the city when most of the people were in bed, raising fears that the death toll may go higher,” said Khoshrou.

Iranian television also said about 70 percent of the buildings in the historic city, some 1,000 km (600 miles) southeast of Tehran, had collapsed.

Bam was without water, electricity and gas, and as night fell temperatures headed below freezing.

Residents set fires to stay warm and made torches from palm branches for light as they dug with bare hands for survivors.

Town squares were packed with crying children and people left without a home, huddled in blankets to protect them from the cold.

Distraught relatives wept next to corpses shrouded in blankets. Hundreds of bodies were bundled into trucks.

Mechanized diggers hollowed out trenches where the dead were buried quickly without rites. The government said up to 2,000 people were buried by late evening.

“I have lost all my family. My parents, my grandmother and two sisters are under the rubble,” said Maryam, 17.

Iranian television said around 30,000 people were injured in and around the city, which had a population of some 200,000.

Bereaved residents wandered the streets pleading for the authorities to speed up rescue efforts.

“Seventeen of my relatives are buried under the ruins of my home. They’ve got to get them out,” said one, who gave his name only as Ali, while trying to clear debris with a shovel.

“Why is help so slow in coming? asked one survivor.

A three-day period of mourning was declared in Kerman province, as state media and authorities broadcast urgent appeals for blood donations, blankets, food and clothes to deal with the catastrophe.

Hundreds of people crowded into Tehran hospitals, volunteering to give blood.

Witnesses said the road to Bam was choked with ambulances and people desperate to find family members. State media said two of Bam’s hospitals had collapsed, crushing many of the staff, and remaining hospitals were full.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told Reuters Iran urgently sought sniffer dogs, blankets and medicines from the international community.

The United Nations said it is sending an aid coordination team to Iran. “In response to the earthquake, the UN released an emergency grant of $90,000 and sent a team of experts to assess the damage, and to mobilize and coordinate international assistance,” a UN spokesperson said in Geneva.

Greece, Russia and Germany were swift to offer help to try to find any survivors under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

A team of Greek earthquake rescue specialists was placed on heightened alert at a military airfield near Athens for possible deployment to Iran.

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou also approved sending emergency aid worth €250,000 ($311,325) to Iran for earthquake relief, the Foreign Ministry said.

“You can be sure that we will do all we can in our powers to make available all necessary humanitarian assistance,” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told President Khatami in a letter. The Russians too were set to dispatch a team.

A large part of Bam’s ancient citadel, one of Iran’s best-loved tourist magnets, had been destroyed, Karimi said. The citadel, dating back 2,000 years, contained fortifications, towers, buildings, stables and a mosque.

Bam was located on the old Silk Road route between China and Europe used by merchants and travelers for centuries, and contained inns, a gymnasium, a theological school and bazaars.