hornett Posted December 26, 2003 Share Posted December 26, 2003 source Iran earthquake 'kills thousands'Thousands of people are feared dead after a powerful earthquake hit the city of Bam in south-eastern Iran. The ancient city's historic quarter - a popular tourist destination - was badly damaged, and telephone and water links were disrupted by the quake on Friday. Rescuers have rushed to the area, but there are reports local hospitals were damaged, slowing relief efforts. Iran suffers frequent earthquakes, with small tremors happening almost daily and 35,000 dying in one 1990 quake. Iranian officials say at least 2,000 people were killed in Friday's quake. "So far we can only confirm 2,000 dead but the number is sure to rise," an unnamed official told Reuters by telephone. Sorry if this is a double post, I searched but didn't find it on here. Edit : Grrr, I misspelled the title. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincent Posted December 26, 2003 Share Posted December 26, 2003 ouch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazzla Veteran Posted December 26, 2003 Veteran Share Posted December 26, 2003 Moved here and edited title Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hornett Posted December 26, 2003 Author Share Posted December 26, 2003 Thanks Dazzla. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timan Veteran Posted December 26, 2003 Veteran Share Posted December 26, 2003 Now this is one thing I do not get why they do not show it on tv here :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bayrider Posted December 26, 2003 Share Posted December 26, 2003 what was the magnitude of the earthquake? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romant Posted December 26, 2003 Share Posted December 26, 2003 they should spend more money on their people than building a nuclear bomb. would have saved more lives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John S. Veteran Posted December 26, 2003 Veteran Share Posted December 26, 2003 Now this is one thing I do not get why they do not show it on tv here :/ you don't have cable? foxnews.com / cnn.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zhangm Supervisor Posted December 26, 2003 Supervisor Share Posted December 26, 2003 6.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tajddin Posted December 26, 2003 Share Posted December 26, 2003 What's unbelievable is that we, here in California, experienced an earthquake of the exact magnitude only a few days before, and there were only two deaths. I was 15 miles from the epicenter and there?s not a single crack on my walls. Those poor people in Iran. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guru Posted December 26, 2003 Share Posted December 26, 2003 OMG terrible stuff :( from CNN "Government officials said as many as 20,000 people may have died" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guru Posted December 26, 2003 Share Posted December 26, 2003 What's unbelievable is that we, here in California, experienced an earthquake of the exact magnitude only a few days before, and there were only two deaths. I was 15 miles from the epicenter and there?s not a single crack on my walls. Those poor people in Iran. Iranians were livings in house constructed from mud bricks... thats what causes so much death... house's collapsing..rubble and stuff :(:( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted December 27, 2003 Veteran Share Posted December 27, 2003 Oh man. :no: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnsonBox Posted December 27, 2003 Share Posted December 27, 2003 What's unbelievable is that we, here in California, experienced an earthquake of the exact magnitude only a few days before, and there were only two deaths. I was 15 miles from the epicenter and there?s not a single crack on my walls. Those poor people in Iran. Buildings in Calif. are usually constructions of anti-earthquake, while buildings in Iran are not... Earthquake education in Iran is so poor, see: "Most people think what God wills will happen. This is absolutely wrong. This thinking is poisonous," said Bahram Akasheh, professor of geophysics at Tehran University. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldmate15 Posted December 27, 2003 Share Posted December 27, 2003 here is a longer report Tens of thousands of people have spent the night on the streets in bitter cold after a massive earthquake killed 20,000 and devastated Iran's historic southeastern fort city of Bam.A source in the provincial governor's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said more than 20,000 people died and 50,000 others were injured in the quake . Countries around the world offered aid and condolences after the major tremor hit the city, some 1,000km southeast of the capital, at 5.28am local time (1258 AEDT). Among them, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer pledged $2 million in immediate relief. Aid program officials would continue to monitor United Nations and other international assessments to see if further assistance was necessary, he said. "I have written to Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi to offer the deepest condolences of the Australian Government and people at this most difficult time," Mr Downer said. Leaders of Middle Eastern and Gulf states, European countries, Japan, America and Canada also offered help with relief aid and medical teams. Bam, built almost entirely of mud brick, is ill-equipped to withstand a big quake. The city had a population of 90,000 people, with the district home to some 200,000 residents. Most of those who escaped were spending the night outdoors as the temperature plunged and concerns mounted for those still buried beneath the ruins. Bereaved residents wandered the streets of Bam pleading for the authorities to speed up rescue efforts. The city's two hospitals were destroyed in the earthquake, and while field hospitals were set up, they were overwhelmed by the magnitude of casualties. Kerman provincial Governor Mohammad Ali Karimi said: "One thing is sure: the historic quarter of Bam has been completely destroyed and many of our countrymen are underneath the ruins. The situation is very worrying." Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mussavi-Lari said the top "priority is to get help to the injured who are under the rubble. It is very cold in the region, and we are very concerned" for them. "Our second priority is to get the wounded to hospitals in the region," the minister said, adding that five military aircraft were shuttling between Bam and Kerman. Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei conveyed his "heartfelt condolences to the noble Iranian nation and the bereaved families of the victims," state news agency IRNA reported. "I pray to God for the fast recovery of the injured people and call the executive bodies to take immediate action in rendering aid to the needy people," he said. President Mohammad Khatami declared the earthquake a "national disaster which requires collective collaboration and cooperation of all executive and military organisations to mobilise all their facilities to help the victims". More than 90 per cent of the old city, one of the wonders of Iran's cultural heritage, was destroyed. Besides the flattened homes, the 2,000-year-old citadel, once the largest mud-brick structure in the world, was gone forever. Around 4,000 people have been sent to hospital in the provincial capital, Kerman, some 175km to the northwest, said Assadollah Iranmanesh, a member of Karimi's staff. State television said another 170 people had been airlifted to Tehran for treatment and a similar number had been sent to the southwestern city of Shiraz. A three-day period of mourning was declared, as authorities broadcast urgent appeals for blood donations, blankets, food and clothes. Iran also quickly appealed for international aid. "We need sniffer dogs and detection equipment, blankets, medicines, food, but also prefabricated houses because winter is coming very quickly," an interior ministry statement said. A ministry spokesman announced that foreign aid workers helping victims of the quake would not need entry visas. The United Nations and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, also responded to the call for urgent aid. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's office said the world body had granted an immediate emergency grant of $US90,000 ($A122,498) for Iran. For its part, the Red Cross is preparing an appeal for about 10 million Swiss francs ($A10.79 million), a spokesman in Geneva said. Roy Probert said the appeal would cover emergency supplies such as tents, blankets and possibly field hospitals. He added that Red Cross societies in Europe were already "queuing up" with offers of help. And the foreign ministry in Israel, which Iran considers to be one of its greatest enemies, announced that Israeli non-governmental organisations are "looking into offering their help." Planes from Switzerland, Britain, Germany, Italy and Belgium were expected to arrive in Kerman, while Moscow has said it is sending in a first detachment of rescue workers with dogs. Doctors and field hospitals would follow. Several aftershocks were recorded, the most violent occurring at 6:36 am (1406 AEDT), IRNA quoted the Tehran University Geophysics Centre as saying. The Strasbourg Observatory in France put the quake at 6.6 and said it was the most powerful in the region since 1998. The US Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Centre in Virginia measured it at 6.7. Telephone and radio communications with the city, as well as the towns of Giroft and Kohnuj, were cut off following the quake. The government has set up a crisis centre in Kerman, dispatching five helicopters and two huge C-130 transport planes to the quake site, IRNA quoted deputy provincial governor Hossein Marachi as saying. Earthquakes are very frequent in Iran. Until the quake, nearly 1,000 of them had claimed some 17,600 lives and injured 53,000 people since 1991, according to official figures. On August 27, a tremor of 5.7 jolted the Bam area, but caused no casualties. The last major quake came in June 2002, when a tremor of 6.3 hit northwestern Iran, killing 235 people and injuring more than 1,300. RIP and I hope they are more survivors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poind Posted December 27, 2003 Share Posted December 27, 2003 what was the magnitude of the earthquake? Iran (Tehran University) reported it at 6.3. U.S. reported it at 6.7 (which is still decently below the 7.1 that hit San Francisco area in 1989, as just one example, flattening freeways and the like). [For what it's worth, believe earthquake points progress exponentially in 32x orders of magnitude--a 6.0 has 32 times more energy released than a 5.0, a 7.0 has 32 times more energy than a 6.0 and so on....] In addition to what's looking to be *perhaps* in the 10s of thousands killed, fortresses and such that were over 2000 years old are now dust/rubble. Area was not prepared at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
o_87 Posted December 27, 2003 Share Posted December 27, 2003 Wow, 20,000! Very sad indeed. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheElite Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 now around 40,000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poind Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 Indeed, estimates now are hitting 40,000, and Iran has opened itself up to relief workers from anywhere other than Israel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g3nu1n3 Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 God bless the souls of the dead and our heart felt prayers and sympathy's for the Living. May God help them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turkforce Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 yeah may god help the survivors and bless the souls of the dead .. it is time for the countries in the middle-east to see that it is very important for building more earthquake-resistant buildings .. but yeah one problem is the money .. the people there are very poor and the people that rule the country are very rich .. it is time to wake up, and restructure the countries .. which means more help to poor people than helping to create more weapons of mass-destruction .. i am a muslim too .. yeah god has caused the earthquake i believe, but it shows also that somethings go wrong in those countries, that they have a corrupt regime for example and uses their money for the wrong things .. everything would be OK if they would just follow the rules the islam.. and then i mean the real rules, not the half made-up rules of the fundamentalists .. those real rules includes also to help the poor people :) .. i hope it will happen never again.. but it will for sure.. and i hope they will be better prepared than now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h0ax Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 they should spend more money on their people than building a nuclear bomb.would have saved more lives. but yeah one problem is the money .. the people there are very poor and the people that rule the country are very rich that goes for the us aswell and any other country with nuclear bombs and crazy rich people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Veteran Posted December 29, 2003 Veteran Share Posted December 29, 2003 Iran (Tehran University) reported it at 6.3. U.S. reported it at 6.7 (which is still decently below the 7.1 that hit San Francisco area in 1989, as just one example, flattening freeways and the like). [For what it's worth, believe earthquake points progress exponentially in 32x orders of magnitude--a 6.0 has 32 times more energy released than a 5.0, a 7.0 has 32 times more energy than a 6.0 and so on....] In addition to what's looking to be *perhaps* in the 10s of thousands killed, fortresses and such that were over 2000 years old are now dust/rubble. Area was not prepared at all. I was under the impression that the number on the scale represented an exponent in a number i.e. X^y. X being the constant and the y being the number reported as the magnitude. Horrible tragedy, it is only made sadder in my eyes that Iranians accept it as the will of God. Hopefully steps are taken to make Iran safer with regard to natural disasters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amir Posted December 29, 2003 Share Posted December 29, 2003 Three days after a devastating earthquake leveled the ancient city of Bam, authorities say most of the 25,000 bodies so far discovered in the rubble have been buried in mass graves on the outskirts of the city. I'M ONLY CRY for people :no: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason the Eighty Eighth Posted December 29, 2003 Share Posted December 29, 2003 this happened 4 days ago, i can't believe you haven't heard of it yet :blink: and unfortunately, the figures of lost lives climb to 30,000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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