Iran-Iraq earthquake: Rouhani vows action over collapsed buildings

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has vowed to “find the culprits” responsible for buildings collapsing in a 7.3-magnitude earthquake on Sunday. He suggested that government-built buildings had collapsed while privately-built ones remained standing.

As he spoke in the worst-affected city, Sarpol-e Zahab, he gestured to two buildings, one of which had collapsed while the other had not.

The government is scrambling to get aid to Kermanshah province in the west of the country, where hundreds of homes were destroyed and people have spent two nights outdoors in the cold. President Rouhani visited the region on Tuesday - a national day of mourning - and made an address that was broadcast live on TV.

He said the government would lend and give money to those left homeless, and hold accountable anyone found not to have upheld building standards.

“Who is to be blamed?” he asked.

“These are the issues that we should follow, we should find the culprits and people are waiting for us to introduce the culprits.

“We will do that, we will do that.” Mehr is Farsi for kindness, and under the scheme hundreds of homes were built in Sarpol-e Zahab.

“Pay attention, please, that some of these houses are very new, some of them have been built by the government and they are not very old,” Mr Rouhani said.

“However, you can see that some buildings collapsed. How could that happen?” But Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), told state TV: “Newly constructed buildings... held up well, but the old houses built with earth were totally destroyed.” Mansoureh Bagheri, an Iranbased official with the Red Crescent Society, told the BBC about 12,000 residential buildings had “totally collapsed”. One aid agency said 70,000 people needed shelter after the quake.