Aid Is Rushed to Iranian Quake Victims

QAYEN, Iran — Convoys of buses, trucks and pickups rushed volunteers over narrow dirt roads Sunday to the remote mountains of northeastern Iran, where the death toll from a powerful earthquake reached 2,400 people--and was still climbing.

More than 155 aftershocks shook what was left standing, forcing tens of thousands of people to camp amid the rubble in the streets of stricken villages. About 40,000 people were left homeless.

Military aircraft flew food, clothes and medicine to the area, and volunteers who arrived in convoys dug through collapsed structures with their bare hands to look for bodies. Others handed out aid.

In most villages, the streets had been transformed into rows of rubble. Survivors beat their chests and wailed in anguish. Others washed the bodies of their loved ones and buried them in mass graves.

At least 6,000 people were injured in the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck at midday Saturday near the town of Qayen, 70 miles west of the Afghan border.

Most of the damage was in the 60-mile stretch between Birjand and Qayen, a region dotted by poor villages and mud huts. In one of the villages, an elementary school collapsed, killing 110 girls and burying their bodies under jagged slabs of concrete and steel.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency said there was also considerable damage in neighboring Afghanistan. In the Afghan capital, Kabul, international aid workers said at least four teams had set out to assess the wreckage in remote western Afghanistan.

Iranian officials estimated the damage at $67 million and appealed for international aid. From Tokyo, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged other countries “to respond promptly and with generosity.”

France sent a cargo plane carrying 39 tons of blankets, tents, clothes and food Sunday. Switzerland sent a rescue team and dogs to help search for survivors, although Iran turned down an offer of a larger contingent.

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, based in Geneva, said Sunday that it was mobilizing a massive relief effort for the stricken region.

The federation issued an urgent international appeal for help, asking for roughly $9 million in cash and equipment.

The federation had personnel and equipment for three field surgical hospitals ready to be flown into Iran, but as of Sunday it had not yet received a response from Iranian authorities on whether such aid was needed. Weyland Juergen, chief of operations at the federation, was scheduled to fly to Tehran this morning with other international relief representatives to assess the situation and coordinate efforts.

The assistance program will almost certainly require help from the U.S. government, Juergen said.

“We stand ready to do anything to help,” said White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn. Despite the history of hostile relations between the U.S. and Iran, the U.S. has in the past responded to disasters in Iran with assistance, Glynn said.