Iran searches for survivors

TEHRAN: Iranian rescue workers dug through rubble to search for survivors yesterday after a major earthquake struck the Iran-Iraq border, killing more than 300 and injuring thousands.

The 7.3-magnitude quake hit a border area 30km southwest of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan at 9.20pm (2.30am in Malaysia) on Sunday, when many would have been at home, the US Geological Survey said.

Some Iranians spent the night outdoors after fleeing their homes in the mountainous cross-border region, huddling around fires at dawn as the authorities deployed help to affected areas.

A woman and her baby were pulled out alive from the rubble in the Iranian town of Sar-e Pol-e Zaham, the worst hit in the quake, local media reported.

Iranian officials said they were setting up relief camps but access to the areas was not easy.

Iran’s emergency services chief Pir Hossein Koolivand said it was “difficult to send rescue teams to the villages because the roads have been cut off by landslides”.

The official IRNA news agency said 30 Red Cross teams had been sent to the quake zone, parts of which are without power.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the government and armed forces to mobilise “all their means” to help the population.

Local media reported hundreds of ambulances and dozens of army helicopters mobilised for rescue operations including in rural areas.

Footage posted on Twitter showed panicked people fleeing a building in the northern Iraqi province of Sulaimaniyah, as windows shattered at the moment the quake struck, while images from the nearby town of Darbandikhan showed walls and concrete structures had collapsed. – AFP