FRANTIC HUNT FOR SURVIVORS OF QUAKE
▶ Death toll above 400 and thousands injured after Iraq-Iran disaster
Teams of rescuers dug through rubble in a hunt for survivors yesterday after a major earthquake struck the Iraq-Iran border, killing at least 415 people and injuring thousands.
The 7.3-magnitude quake rocked a border area 30 kilometres south-west of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan at about 9.20pm local time (10.20pm UAE) on Sunday, the US Geological Survey said.
Many people would have been at home when the quake hit in Iran’s western province of Kermanshah, where authorities said it killed at least 407 people and injured 6,700.
Across the border in more sparsely populated areas of Iraq, the health ministry said eight people had died and several hundred were injured.
Iraq’s Red Crescent reported nine dead and more than 400 injured.
As dusk approached yesterday, tens of thousands of Iranians were forced to sleep outside in the cold for a second night as authorities scrambled to provide them with aid.
Some had spent Sunday night outdoors after fleeing their homes in the mountainous cross-border region, huddling around fires at dawn as authorities sent in help.
“People’s immediate needs are firstly tents, water and food,” said the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Maj Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari.
“Newly constructed buildings … held up well, but the old houses built with earth were totally destroyed,” he said during a visit to the affected region.
Hundreds of ambulances and dozens of army helicopters reportedly joined the rescue effort after Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the government and armed forces to mobilise “all their means”.
Foreign media organisations were not given authorisation to visit the scene of the disaster yesterday but officials said they were setting up relief camps for the displaced.
Iran’s emergency services chief Pir Hossein Koolivand said landslides had cut off roads to affected villages, impeding the access of rescue workers. But by late afternoon, officials said all roads in Kermanshah province had been re-opened, although the worstaffected town of Sar-e Pol-e Zahab was without electricity, state television reported.
Officials said 22,000 tents, 52,000 blankets and tonnes of food and water had been distributed, while the official IRNA news agency said 30 Red Crescent teams had been sent to the quake zone.
After initially pinning the quake’s epicentre inside Iraq, the USGS yesterday morning placed it across the border in Iran.
Sar-e Pol-e Zahab in Iran, home to about 85,000 people close to the border, was the worst hit with at least 236 dead.
At dawn, buildings in the town stood disfigured, their former facades now rubble
Where are the injured people supposed to go? This is a nightmare NERMIN AZAD Primary school teacher in Erbil
When Reem Al Kubaisi felt the first tremors on Sunday night, the Baghdad resident thought there had been a bombing.
“I was sitting on the sofa watching television and we felt the ground moving. At first I thought it was an explosion because we are so used to that here,” she told The National.
“My husband was in the kitchen – he suddenly started screaming, ‘earthquake’. We all ran out into the garden and waited until it stopped. We were terrified,” Ms Al Kubaisi said.
But the 7.3-magnitude earthquake that struck outside the city of Halabja largely spared Iraq the devastation it wrought across the border in Iran, where more than 400 people died and thousands were injured.
The Iraqi interior ministry reported fewer than 10 people killed and about 500 injured, all of them in the northern Kurdish region.
But the powerful tremors, felt as far away as the UAE, caused widespread damage and panic, with many people rushing out into the streets of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Halabja and Baghdad.
Iraqi health authorities said most of the hundreds of people treated after the earthquake were suffering from shock.
“The earthquake woke me up. I ran outside the house in my nightgown. I was really afraid of what was going on, and everyone in the streets was panicking,” said Yasmin Ahmad, a 32-year-old housewife in Baghdad.
“This is the last thing we need. Iraq has suffered enough.”
Most Baghdad residents were able to return to their homes by dawn, although some buildings had suffered extensive damage and the fear of aftershocks kept thousands of others out in the streets and parks.
There were reports of electricity being cut off temporarily in some areas of Baghdad as well as in several northern cities.
“The situation in the north is far more critical than the rest of Iraq,” said Nermin Azad, 28, a primary school teacher in Erbil, capital of the Kurdish region.
“Erbil and Sulaymaniyah’s main hospitals were damaged and had no power. Where are the injured people supposed to go? This is a nightmare,” she said.
“The building next to ours collapsed. The walls in our apartment were damaged and most of the windows broke, while the electricity was cut off for a few hours. We didn’t know what to do or where to go.
“The shaking felt like it lasted for hours, but in reality it lasted for about five minutes.”
Residents of Kirkuk, the main city in the oil-rich northern province of the same name, also reported heavy damage to buildings.
“My windows are damaged, there was cold air coming in all night,” said Iman Farid, 42, a housewife. “We had no access to our belongings for hours and were just sitting in the street fearing the aftershocks of the earthquake.”
Iraq’s prime minister, Haider Al Abadi, reassured civilians, saying: “I have instructed civil defence teams and health and aid agencies to do all that they can to provide assistance to our citizens affected by yesterday’s earthquake. We will do everything possible to help them.”
The government in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region mobilised all medical staff and advised people to follow instructions from local authorities.
“We urge all medical workers and staff to report to work immediately and help the victims,” it said.
The powerful tremors triggered by the earthquake raised fears for residents in the Kurdish region’s mountainous areas, where most homes are built of mud brick.
“These are cheap buildings built for poor people to live in, without any safety – as a result they collapse and are prone to damage,” said Arzu Ismail, 36, a lawyer in Sulaymaniyah, the second-largest city in the Kurdish region.
The area hardest hit by the earthquake was across the border in the Iranian province of Kermanshah, where most deaths and injuries were reported.
A member of parliament from the town of Sarpol-e-Zahad, which suffered the most destruction, said that 15 members of his family had been killed.