Aranak Tavassoli had spent the last 24 hours on the phone, desperate for news of her family in the aftermath of Iran's disastrous earthquake.
Her relatives live in Tehran, which was not harmed by the quake, and in Manjil, a small city in northwestern Iran that she heard has been destroyed.
There is no answer at her father's Tehran telephone. So, the 30-year-old emigre, who works as a microbiologist in Los Angeles, wonders: Was he in Tehran when the quake hit? Has he gone to Manjil to help the dozens of other relatives there? Or is he a victim, too?
"I don't know," she said Friday, her voice breaking.
As thousands in Southern California's nearly half-million-strong Iranian community were frustrated in their efforts to get any information about the fate of their loved ones, dozens of Iranian community groups mobilized several efforts Friday to help their ravaged homeland.
The Iranian American Jewish Federation in Los Angeles quickly set up a fund to raise money. The Van Nuys-based Iranian Refugee Relief Organization scrambled to coordinate donations, and the Iranian Assn. of America in West Los Angeles hosted a four-hour meeting of Iranian-American community leaders to map out a relief effort. One of the Iranian television groups, Sima-Y-Ashena, scheduled a telethon for next Friday on Channel 18.
Although the Southern California Iranian community is often sharply divided by clashing religious, political and economic interests, many tried to set aside their differences as the enormity of the Thursday disaster became known. Leaders of the usually fractious 800-member Iranian Student Assn. at UCLA, for example, pledged their group's help.
"For the first time, all Iranians are coming together," said Youran Nassir, the student association's president.
Along Westwood Boulevard, "all people can talk about is the earthquake," said Kamrun Madanipur, proprietor of a small shop filled with items as varied as shish kebab seasonings and books on Iran's late ruler, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The boulevard in recent years has become known as Little Tehran because of its large number of Iranian restaurants and stores filled with Iranian spices, candies and books.
Madanipur's radio was tuned to Saday-H-Iran Radio, which was carrying continuous coverage of the earthquake in Persian, the language of Iran. A few doors down at the Westwood Meat Co., Iraj Ghaffari had his radio on the same station and was already collecting emergency supplies, blankets and canned goods to send to Iran.
