KOUIK: Iranian survivors of a powerful earthquake that killed more than 400 people pleaded Wednesday for water, tents and other emergency supplies as aid trickled into remote villages near the Iraqi border.
The government ordered rescuers to keep searching for people trapped under the rubble following the 7.3-magnitude quake which struck the mountainous region late Sunday, toppling buildings and leaving thousands homeless.
At least 432 people were killed in Iran, all in the western province of Kermanshah, and eight in Iraq, according to authorities in the two countries.
In total, nearly 8,200 people were reported to have been injured.
In villages north of the badly hit city of Sar-e Pol-e Zahab, a convoy of about 20 ambulances arrived with medicine while Red Crescent teams brought tents, water, food, and blankets.
But much of the assistance came from ordinary Iranians, some of whom traveled more than 100 km from a neighboring province.
“God bless them!” resident Abdol Gaderi, 45, said of the volunteers, but “we need running water, electricity, and mobile toilets.”
Villagers voiced fears of disease breaking out because of the corpses of animals under the rubble.
In Ghaleh Bahadori, where around 30 Red Crescent tents had been provided, residents pleaded for more help.
“This is not enough,” said Tooraj Mohammadi, adding that most families in the village had been left homeless.
“Thirty people died here. We buried them ourselves in coordination with the police,” he said.
In Iran alone, the quake is estimated to have caused damage of 26,000 billion Iranian rials (about $6.3 billion), Kermanshah provincial Deputy Gov. Mojtaba Nikkerdar said, quoted by the ISNA news agency.
That is equivalent to about 1.5 percent of the Iranian gross domestic product (GDP) which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast for 2017.
In total, about 30,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, according to the Iranian authorities.
Severe damage to social housing blocks in Sar-e Pol-e Zahab built under a scheme championed by former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sparked indignation on social media.
President Hassan Rouhani said those responsible would be held to account.
“The fact that houses built by individuals ... are intact while buildings erected by the state are seriously damaged shows that there has been corruption,” he said, according to his official website.
Speaking a day earlier on the same subject, Rouhani had said that it was necessary to “look for the guilty parties and present them to the population.”
Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told lawmakers that the authorities had sent 36,000 tents and another 10,000 would follow for families too fearful of aftershocks to sleep in their own homes, ISNA reported.
While residents, particularly in Kouik, complained emergency aid was being stolen by people from outside the region, the minister said there was “no particular problem of public security” in the quake-hit regions.
The Cabinet approved a series of measures including interest-free loans and donations to affected households to replace their destroyed furniture or other belongings.
On Tuesday, Iran marked a day of mourning, with a black banner adorning the corner of images of the disaster broadcast by state television.
Israel offered aid for the quake victims, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting his country has “no quarrel with the people of Iran.”
Iran sees frequent seismic activity.
Aid slow to reach quake-hit Iranian villages
Aid slow to reach quake-hit Iranian villages
Iran FM tells UN all military bases of ‘hostile forces’ legitimate targets
- UN chief condemns escalation, calls for immediate return to negotiating table
- Emergency session of Security Council set to convene on Saturday in New York
NEW YORK: Iran will use “all necessary defensive capabilities and means” to confront attacks by the US and Israel, and will treat “all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile forces in the region” as legitimate military targets under its right to self-defense, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the president of the Security Council, Araghchi said US and Israeli airstrikes are “a clear violation” of the UN Charter and amount to “an open armed aggression” against Iran.
Tehran is exercising its “inherent and lawful right of self-defense” under the UN Charter, he added.
The letter, seen by Arab News, accused the US and Israel of launching coordinated, large-scale attacks on Iranian territory, targeting defensive facilities and civilian sites in several cities.
Araghchi said Iran will continue to act “decisively and without hesitation until the aggression ceases fully and unequivocally,” adding that the US and Israel “shall bear full and direct responsibility for all ensuing consequences, including any escalation arising from their unlawful actions.”
He called on the 15-member Security Council to convene an emergency meeting to address a “breach of peace which is a real and serious threat to international peace and security,” and urged UN member states to “unequivocally condemn this act of aggression.”
An emergency session of the council is set to convene in New York on Saturday, requested by France, Bahrain, Colombia, China and Russia.
The Russian mission at the UN said in a statement that during the meeting, Moscow will demand that the US and Israel “immediately cease their illegal and escalatory actions and embark on a path toward a political and diplomatic settlement.” It added that “Russia is willing to provide all necessary assistance in this process.”
Meanwhile, Guterres condemned the military escalation, saying “the use of force by the United States and Israel against Iran, and the subsequent retaliation by Iran across the region, undermine international peace and security.”
The UN Charter clearly prohibits “the threat of the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations,” Guterres said in a statement.
He called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and de-escalation, and an immediate return to the negotiating table, adding that “failing to do so risks a wider regional conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.”
UN human rights chief Volker Turk also deplored the escalation and warned that civilians are the ones who end up paying “the ultimate price.”
He said: “Bombs and missiles are not the way to resolve differences but only result in death, destruction and human misery.”
Turk called for restraint and implored the parties “to see reason, to de-escalate, and (return) to the ‘negotiating table’ where they had been actively seeking a solution only hours earlier.”
