Bam quake toll hits 40,000

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BAM, Iran (AFP) — Iran welcomed US emergency aid on Tuesday but rejected talks with its arch-foe as the death toll from the Bam earthquake was put at 40,000, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters of modern times. The grim assessment came as bulldozers and recovery workers pressed on with the gruesome task of pulling out corpses from the rubble and the United Nations appealed for help for the tens of thousands of survivors left homeless.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami thanked the United States and other nations who have rushed to provide aid to the quake-stricken region but ruled out the prospect of political dialogue with Washington without a radical shift in US policy after decades of enmity.

On a visit to the provincial capital of Kerman, Khatami said the death toll in the flattened fort city of Bam and surrounding villages was about 40,000, but denied earlier estimates by local officials that it could top 50,000.

Victims of Friday's quake were being buried as soon as their corpses were unearthed as rescuers sought to prevent disease epidemics and the authorities sought to identify hundreds of anonymous bodies with a computer slideshow of sometimes gruesome photographs.

Only 2,000 people have been pulled out alive since Friday's quake, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale, destroyed Bam and its ancient citadel, a world heritage site and a major tourist attraction that once was one of the largest mud-brick structures on the planet.

Iran's official news agency IRNA said canaries saved two children buried under the rubble by attracting rescuers' attention with their singing.

But Ted Purn, a UN spokesman at the base where the world body is coordinating a massive international humanitarian effort involving 1,700 staff from more than 30 countries, said the true death toll may never be known.

"This now more of a recovery rather than a rescue effort," he said. "There may be one or two survivors who still could be found, although the chances are quite low."

Khatami said the 2,000-year-old citadel would be rebuilt "whatever it costs" after promising to rebuild Bam within two years.

The disaster raised prospects of a rapprochement between Iran and the West as Tehran opened up to offers of aid from friend and foe, including the United States which has branded Iran part of an "axis of evil."

On Sunday, a first US military flight to Iran since the end of the hostage crisis at the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 carried emergency aid to the population of Bam.

Some 80 US doctors and rescue workers are in southern Iran and en route to the earthquake zone, with an initial team of some 20 Americans arriving in Bam Tuesday.

"You are talking about politics, but these are doctors. They are not Mr Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld coming to kill us," Deputy Health Minister Mohammad Akbari said. "This is not help from Mr. Bush. This is help from humanitarian people.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi later helicoptered into a camp set up to provide logistical support to foreign aid, and said he would be meeting the US party.

Countries as far afield as Japan, India and Mexico as well as Lebanon and Cyprus have announced their participation in the relief drive while neighbouring Iraq — which was at war with Iran in the 1980s — also sent a 55-strong medical team.

The oil-rich Gulf states late Monday earmarked $400 million of aid for victims of the earthquake, hours after the United Nations appealed for more money as it began assessing the damage.

UN agencies, working around the clock since the quake struck, have already given about half a million dollars (400,000 euros), but Rashid Khalikov, deputy director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said "we need much more."

"The biggest fear is that as soon as the news about the earthquake disappears from TV screens it will be reflected in support from the international community in terms of contributions to the activities to help the victims," Khalikov said.

Francis Deng, UN chief Kofi Annan's representative for internally displaced persons, urged the international community to help at least 70,000 people left homeless by the disaster, saying the task may be too onerous for Tehran to deal with alone.

Bush considers dialogue with Iran CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) — US President George W. Bush is considering opening dialogue with Iran, a country he has branded part of an "axis of evil," but would like to see some gesture from the Islamic Republic towards the United States, a senior US official said on Tuesday.

"This is a chance for Iran to step forward," the official said. "The burden is on the Iranians."

The move would mark a shift in policy that has been in place since the break in formal ties following the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US humanitarian assistance to Iran in response to the devastating earthquake in the city of Bam helped hasten ongoing discussions within the administration about its policy towards the country. "The earthquake kind of brings it to a head," the official said.

However, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said that while US provision of aid to earthquake victims was welcomed and showed "there is no enmity between the people of Iran and the American nation," it would not alter the relations between the two countries.

"I don't think this incident will change our relations with the United States," Khatami told a news conference on Tuesday in the capital of southeastern Kerman province where officials say up to 50,000 people may have been killed in the quake.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell was quoted in The Washington Post as saying that "encouraging" moves by Iran recently have raised the possibility of restoring dialogue.

"There are things happening and, therefore, we should keep open the possibility of dialogue at an appropriate point in the future," Powell told the Post.

This month, in a European-brokered deal, Iran agreed to surprise UN inspections of its nuclear facilities. Tehran also welcomed international humanitarian aid for victims of Friday's devastating earthquake, which may have killed up to 50,000 people.

The first US military aircraft to land in Iran in more than 20 years arrived over the weekend carrying disaster response experts and tonnes of emergency supplies for survivors of the earthquake.

"All of those things taken together show, it seems to me, a new attitude in Iran in dealing with these issues — not one of total, open generosity. But they realise that the world is watching and the world is prepared to take action," Powell said.

The administration official stressed that tied to the US willingness to open a dialogue was the hope that Iran would take a step to demonstrate good faith by addressing issues of concern to the United States.

Those issues include US accusations of Iranian support for terrorist organisations and its belief that the republic has been working in secret to develop nuclear weapons.

"We are willing to engage in appropriate manner if and when the president decides it's appropriate," the official said. "It's certainly something the president has on his plate to consider."

"There's still a lot that needs to be done," the official added. "The Iranians know exactly what we're referring to. They know what needs to be done.

The United States, still called 'the Great Satan' by Iran's hardliners, broke off diplomatic relations after radical Islamic students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 hostages for 444 days.

Early in his presidency, Bush turned up the heat on already tense relations between the countries when, in January 2002, he labelled Iran as part of an "axis of evil" along with prewar Iraq and North Korea.