Quake’s despair

In Iran, survivors sleep in rubble, desperate for supplies

SARPOL-E-ZAHAB, Iran — In a western Iranian town dev-astated by this week’s powerful earthquake, families are sleep-ing on the rubble of their homes and were fashioning reed shel-ters to off er protection from the elements on Wednesday, saying authorities haven’t delivered enough tents ahead of the fast-approaching winter.Icy rains will be coming soon to Sarpol-e-Zahab, hard hit by Sunday’s 7.3 magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 530 people and injured thousands. Survivors in other towns and villages nestled in the Zagros Mountains face the same tough conditions, still awaiting badly needed aid three days later.Iranian officials from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on down have urged quick distribution of supplies and relief material. However, logistical problems, alleged theft and other issues have plagued the response to the disaster in one of Iran’s pre-dominantly Kurdish regions.“Our things are still in the house under the rubble, but nobody dares go and take them,” survivor Shahla Rezaei said. “We went inside to grab children’s schoolbooks and some other things, but an after-shock hit and we had to escape.” Public order broke down in many areas as aid came in, with families not aff ected by the quake carting off aid intended for survivors, said offi cials, who say police have been deployed to prevent further siphoning.Many in the Kurdish town of Sarpol-e-Zahab, home to half the casualties from the tem-blor, told The Associated Press that they still have not received aid and that they need help to remove debris so they can retrieve essential belongings.Reports said that more than 12,000 tents were distributed in the area, though more than 30,000 houses were affected by the quake — 15,500 of them destroyed. That forced some residents to construct reed huts.Parastou Rezaei, a survivor and a mother of two, thanked those from other towns who came to give people blankets.“We do not have enough tents,” Rezaei said. “We have to make fi re outside the tents at night and keep putting wood in it until morning to protect us from the cold.”Tofi gh Merazi, a father of six, including a daughter with a broken leg in a cast, urged the government to provide some kind of shelter, even shipping containers.“Look at the leg of this child. It is broken. Where should we take her?” he asked.Iranian state television showed people in Bam, where a magnitude 6.6 earthquake killed 26,000 people in 2003, offering a ton of dates to those aff ected. However, tents appeared to be the primary need.On Tuesday, Khamenei called for continued aid shipments to the area ahead of the “diffi cult cold season”. Interior Minis-ter Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told an open session of parlia-ment Wednesday that a total of 36,000 tents had been sent to the region, including those already distributed.Authorities blamed the security situation on some aid not reaching those needing it. Morteza Salimi, of the Iranian Red Crescent, told state TV that despite there being enough aid, “there were some problems in distributing the relief. ... Safety and security were violated”.State media made a point to circulate images and video of Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, Iran’s oil minister, who is a Kurd, vis-iting the region and speaking to those affected in Kurdish. Farsi remains the only govern-mentally recognized language in the country, though Kurdish and other minority languages are recognized at the provincial level and in local media.

VAHID SALEMI / AP An earthquake survivor rides his bicycle in front of damaged buildings in Sarpol-e-Zahab in western Iran on Wednesday. Survivors are awaiting badly needed aid three days after a powerful earthquake along the Iraq border killed hundreds and left...