Iran Relief

With tent clinics and med-evac helicopters, Iran relief officials have made practice in war pay off in combatting a devastating earthquake. Foreign aid workers in the ravaged towns and villages of the quake region Monday credited the prompt response of Iran's Red Crescent Society with preventing the disaster from being even worse.

The fighting in eastern Iraq would start without warning, often in the middle of the night. So the Kurds packed whatever they could, drove until they ran out of gas, then headed out on foot across a treacherous mountain path through what was once a restricted military zone, onward to Iran and safety. While life for these Kurds in Iran may be safe, it has been anything but easy.

Strong aftershocks sent panicked residents rushing into the streets of northern Iran on Saturday, and mass graves were dug for victims of a massive earthquake that some officials say killed at least 40,000 people. Officials estimated that at least 10,000 people died here in Roudbar alone. Roudbar is a mountain town on the banks of the Safid River, and it had a population of about 20,000 before Thursday morning's disaster crushed it flat and left it appearing nearly lifeless.

Increasingly confident of allied promises to protect them, Kurdish refugees abandoned perilous mountain camps for haven in northern Iraq in dramatically growing numbers Friday, U.S. officials said. At the same time, allied troops peacefully secured new eastern areas of a sanctuary in Iraq next to the Turkish border in which no Iraqi military presence is permitted.

Orange County's Iranian community launched an ambitious effort Sunday to collect half a million dollars in money, medicine, tents, blankets and sleeping bags for hundreds of thousands of injured and homeless people in earthquake-ravaged Iran. Representatives of 11 Iranian professional and community groups manned tables near William R. Mason Regional Park, where contributors dropped off supplies, pledged other aid or made financial contributions.

Setting aside years of animosity, the U.S. government joined with private humanitarian groups Friday to funnel medicine, tents, clothing, food and other relief materials to help earthquake-stricken Iran. State Department officials said the government gave $300,000 worth of supplies to the American Red Cross for shipment to Iran--including 1,000 hard hats, 1,000 pairs of leather gloves, 10,000 face masks, 2,940 wool blankets and about 500 tents. The U.S.

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?

Hope of finding more survivors trapped under the rubble of the killer earthquake that slammed mountain villages and Caspian Sea towns in northern Iran four days ago dimmed Sunday as officials upped the estimated death toll to 50,000. Rescue efforts were hampered as the strongest aftershock yet jarred the already severely damaged rice-growing region of Rasht, 120 miles northwest of Tehran, early Sunday afternoon. The new shock, with a magnitude of 5.

President Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday challenged anti-Western radicals in the government and said Iran should be thankful for foreign aid for earthquake victims, even if it comes from enemies. "I don't think we see the people who are under the debris saying, 'No, we don't want foreign aid,' " the president said at a Muslim prayer gathering of thousands at Tehran University. His comment rebutted an editorial that appeared last week in the newspaper Jomhuri Islami.

As he talked, the man's eyes rolled back into his head in dreamy, blissful reverie. "Someday, an American ambassador will come back to Tehran," he said. "His neck will be garlanded with flowers. He will drive his Cadillac from the airport to the American Embassy on a long Persian carpet. People will cheer him on the streets. Only one person will be needed to guard him." The conversation took place in a Tehran airline office.

An American relief organization said that it would send $4 million worth of medical supplies, food and clothing to help victims of last month's devastating earthquake in Iran. The group, Feed the Children, said the 40 tons of supplies would be shipped from Dulles International Airport near Washington to Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. In Iran, the Red Crescent Society will distribute the goods, said Sekita Ekrek, a spokeswoman for the society.

Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani sent messages Monday to 98 world leaders thanking them for helping the victims of last month's earthquake--but he left out the United States. The U.S. government provided $760,000 in aid for the earthquake survivors, according to the State Department, with private American groups sending $4 million. Also missing from the list were Saudi Arabia and Iraq, both of which sent aid.

President Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday challenged anti-Western radicals in the government and said Iran should be thankful for foreign aid for earthquake victims, even if it comes from enemies. "I don't think we see the people who are under the debris saying, 'No, we don't want foreign aid,' " the president said at a Muslim prayer gathering of thousands at Tehran University. His comment rebutted an editorial that appeared last week in the newspaper Jomhuri Islami.

The killer earthquake that flattened homes and shook down mountainsides in northwest Iran exposed the political fault lines in Tehran before the first big aftershock. For a country constricted with pride and paranoia, the prompt offers of relief aid from the West drove a chasm between the insular radicals and the pragmatic camp of President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

French and Iranian relief teams rescued at least seven people, including a mother and her 12-year-old son, who were buried for five days in the rubble from the earthquake in Iran, the official media said Wednesday. In another development, field tribunals were being set up in Roudbar and Manjil to try "criminals who are abusing the situation" in the ravaged area, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported. IRNA appeared to be referring to looters and profiteers.

As he talked, the man's eyes rolled back into his head in dreamy, blissful reverie. "Someday, an American ambassador will come back to Tehran," he said. "His neck will be garlanded with flowers. He will drive his Cadillac from the airport to the American Embassy on a long Persian carpet. People will cheer him on the streets. Only one person will be needed to guard him." The conversation took place in a Tehran airline office.

Trucks carried aid into earthquake-stricken Iran on Saturday from Soviet Azerbaijan, which observed a day of mourning for victims, the official Tass news agency said. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev sent his condolences to the Iranian leadership, and the Soviet Red Cross dispatched a plane carrying rescue workers and aid. In his message to Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, Gorbachev expressed his "deep condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives in the earthquake."

The killer earthquake that flattened homes and shook down mountainsides in northwest Iran exposed the political fault lines in Tehran before the first big aftershock. For a country constricted with pride and paranoia, the prompt offers of relief aid from the West drove a chasm between the insular radicals and the pragmatic camp of President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

With tent clinics and med-evac helicopters, Iran relief officials have made practice in war pay off in combatting a devastating earthquake. Foreign aid workers in the ravaged towns and villages of the quake region Monday credited the prompt response of Iran's Red Crescent Society with preventing the disaster from being even worse.

Orange County's Iranian community launched an ambitious effort Sunday to collect half a million dollars in money, medicine, tents, blankets and sleeping bags for hundreds of thousands of injured and homeless people in earthquake-ravaged Iran. Representatives of 11 Iranian professional and community groups manned tables near William R. Mason Regional Park, where contributors dropped off supplies, pledged other aid or made financial contributions.