10th January, 2004

Australians have pledged more than $1 million toward helping those people living in the earthquake-ravaged ancient Iranian city of Bam, the Red Cross have announced.

The news comes as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was seeking as much as $51 million to help provide emergency relief in the region as well as to restore health care, water and sanitation facilities.

Visiting the site of the earthquake earlier this week, the federation’s president Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro said the scale of the disaster meant emergency relief would be required for many months to come.

“The people of Bam need adequate shelter, food, health services and sanitation for the foreseeable future,” he said.

At least 30,000 people are believed to have died after an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale shook the city - located 1,000 kilometres south east of the Iranian capital, Tehran - in the early hours of Boxing Day. A further 30,000 are estimated to have been injured and 100,000 left homeless.

There have been several stories of miraculous survival: one involving the rescue of a 97-year-old woman who had been trapped beneath the rubble of her home for nine days.

To make a donation, see www.redcross.org.au or www.worldvision.org.au.

- David Adams