Iran Mourns Victims of Deadly Quake

An Iranian woman and man cry after losing their home and family in the mountain village of Dahoueieh, which was hit by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake Tuesday, killing at least 420 people. (Raheb Homavandi -- Reuters)

SARBAGH, Iran, Feb. 22 -- Under a cold, driving rain, survivors wailed over the bodies of the dead and dug through the ruins of mud-brick houses searching for loved ones after a powerful earthquake flattened villages in central Iran on Tuesday, killing at least 420 people.

The toll was expected to rise because rescue teams did not have a final count from the three most isolated villages in the mountainous region. About 30,000 people were affected, many of them left homeless when some villages were reduced to piles of dirt and stone by the quake, which had a magnitude of 6.4. The number of injured was estimated at 900.

"Where have you gone? I had a lot of plans for you," Hossein Golestani sang softly as he held the lifeless form of his 7-year-old daughter, Fatima. The body of his 8-year-old daughter, Mariam, lay beside him in the devastated village of Hotkan.

Golestani and his wife were out tending their herd of goats when the quake struck at 5:55 a.m., wrecking their home.

Other survivors slapped their faces in grief as they sat next to the dead, who were wrapped in blankets in hospital morgues or on roadsides.

About 40 villages were damaged in the quake, which struck a region 160 miles from Bam, the site of a devastating earthquake in December 2003 that killed 26,000 people and leveled the historic city, which was founded 1,800 years ago.

At dusk, temperatures fell and rain turned to snow in parts of the mountains. Survivors huddled around fires to keep warm, covering themselves in blankets and sipping hot soup. About 1,500 workers from the Iranian Red Crescent fanned out in teams, distributing tents and tarps.

Heavy rain and bad visibility hampered relief efforts. But Mohammad Javad Fadaei, deputy governor of Kerman province, said the search would continue through the night in Hotkan and two other villages, Sarbagh and Dahoueieh, which emergency crews had the most difficulty reaching. Rescue efforts were finished in other villages, he said.

The quake was centered on the outskirts of Zarand, a town of 15,000 people in Kerman province, Iran's geological authority said. The town is about 440 miles southeast of Tehran, the capital.

Though comparable in strength to the 6.6-magnitude Bam quake, Tuesday's temblor hit a more sparsely populated area and was centered far deeper -- 25 miles, compared with six miles for Bam -- limiting the damage.

Still, the tiny villages that dot the central mountains, most made of fragile mud brick, were hit hard. In Dahoueieh, every building except a mosque with a golden dome had collapsed, and at least 80 percent of the buildings in Sarbagh were leveled.

The Iranian Red Crescent told international relief officials it did not need outside aid, said Roy Probert, a spokesman for the Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Fadaei said Iran would not issue a plea for aid, but "if foreign countries volunteer their help, we'll take tents, blankets, cash and earth-moving machinery."