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Editor’s
note: Financial contributions for Iranian earthquake relief
can be made through congregations or mailed to the Presbyterian
Center, Central Receiving Service, Section 300, Louisville, KY
40289. Specify designated account number #9-2000077. To make a
gift with a credit card, call PresbyTel toll-free at (800) 872-3283,
or visit PDA’s secure Web site at: http://www.pcusa.org/pda/response/middleeast/iran-appeal2004.htm.
— Jerry L. Van Marter.
BAM, Iran — The city of Bam, a once-peaceful and
graceful Iranian haven of date trees and historical sites, lies
in ruins more than two weeks after an earthquake struck on Dec.
26, leading to the deaths of at least 30,000 people.
The scope of the disaster — which some have compared to
the destruction of European cities during the Second World War
— is remarkable in part because the earthquake was so concentrated.
Just a few kilometers outside Bam, in southeastern Iran, there
is, amazingly, little evidence of damage.
But within the city where once some 80,000 persons lived and where
Iranians from all parts of the country came to relax and enjoy
one of the country’s top tourist destinations, no structure
was left standing intact. Most were flattened to dust and rubble.
“We need to start over but don’t have the resources,”
said Shamsali Seieady, 42, who was a merchant, and who now sells
cigarettes on the street to other stunned Bam residents.
The Arg-e-Bam, the city’s historic citadel, built before
the time of Christ, now in ruins, has become a point of homage:
dozens of people roam the area near the fortress as if to pay
their respects. A dislodged sign taken down and perched against
a wall reads: “You are Most Welcome to Ancient Castle and
Historical City of Bam.”
As many as 18,000 children may have perished in the disaster and
in all up to 52,000 people could have been killed, according to
some accounts and estimates of fatalities.
But even with the lower estimate of somewhat more than 30,000
dead, the Bam quake is among the deadliest in decades, after earthquakes
in China in 1976 (225,000 dead), Peru in 1970 (66,000 dead) and
an earlier earthquake in Iran in 1990 (up to 50,000 dead). The
fatalities in Bam far exceed those of two recent major earthquakes,
in Turkey in 1999 (17,000 dead) and in India in 2001(more than
13,000 dead).
The disaster affected all classes and stations of the city: Shahnazy,
a female school principal, Mariam Jahanabady, a newly-widowed
mother of two daughters with no job, and merchant Seieady, all
find themselves stranded.
With the dead buried, a few isolated stories of rescues now over
and efforts focused on maintaining the health and safety of survivors,
officials with regional and international relief agencies are
also looking ahead to the Herculean task of rebuilding the city.
The United Nations has estimated it may take up to $1 billion
to rebuild the city.
“This will be a long, long project — five to seven
years at least,” said Melik Khodaverdian, the liaison in
Iran for the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), one of the
agencies responding to the disaster.
The MECC, a member of the Action by Churches Together (ACT) International
network, a Geneva-based consortium of church-related aid agencies,
is working with the Iranian Red Crescent and the government there
in responding to the earthquake.
The task of both immediate relief and long-term rehabilitation
is made more painful by the fact that Bam residents — many
now living in tents near their destroyed homes — once enjoyed
a relatively secure life.
Hamlet Sarkissians, an MECC staff member, told ENI a common lament
among Bam residents has been “once we lived like kings and
queens.” And indeed one older woman was overheard to say
“Look at what our lives have become” as she bustled
out of a crowded tent she shared with other family members, carrying
damaged cooking pots.
One unforeseen result of the disaster may be slightly closer ties
between the United States and Iran, adversaries for more than
20 years. Since the disaster, U.S. and Iranian officials have
been engaged in an uneasy exchange for better relations. The United
States is among 60 nations providing humanitarian assistance to
Iran.
The MECC’s Khodaverdian said he felt the disaster “could
be the first step in opening a road between Iran and the United
States.”
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