Iran earthquake: Baby found alive in rubble three days after tremors
Child’s rescue gives survivors hope as Iranian Olympic gold medallist auctions medal to raise awareness and funds for those affected by devastating magnitude 7.3 quake
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Many people called the rescue a “miracle”, expressing that the child’s survival is cause for hope after the tragedy
Rescue workers have found a baby alive and well, three days after a
deadly earthquake that struck on the Iran-Iraq border.
The child was found amid the rubble of the town of Sarpol-e-Zahab on Wednesday morning - two and a half days after the magnitude 7.3 quake which has killed at least 530 people, local media reported.
A picture of the child, which appears to be smiling and not in distress, has been widely circulated among Iranians on social media. Many people called the rescue a “miracle” and expressed how the child’s survival is cause for hope after the tragedy.
Emergency services continued to search for survivors on Thursday, but four days after the quake fewer and fewer people are being pulled alive from the wreckage of apartment buildings.
In Kurdish majority town of Sarpol-e-Zahab, which was the worst affected, field hospitals are treating the injured and tents have been set up for the 70,000 people left homeless in winter weather.
Aid agencies say there is still a need for shelter, blankets, children’s clothes, medicine and large cans to store drinking water.
Donations from diaspora Iranians in the West and others wanting to help have hit a snag in the form of international sanctions rules: in the US, it has not been possible to send cash directly to people within Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In an effort to raise funds and awareness, one Iranian weightlifter - who won gold at the Rio 2016 Olympics - has put his medal up for auction in an effort to raise funds for victims.
Kianoush Rostami, who grew up in Kermanshah province near Sarpol-e-Zahab, said he was was “taking a step, however small” to help those in need after the earthquake.
“I am returning my Rio 2016 Olympics gold medal - which actually belongs to them - to my people,” he wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday.
“I will put my medal up for auction. All the proceedings will go to those hit by the earthquake.
Sunday’s magnitude 7.3 quake was centred 31 kilometres (19 miles) outside the eastern Iraqi city of Halabja, the US Geological Survey said.
Donald Trump stays silent on deadly Iran-Iraq earthquake so far
It struck at a relatively shallow depth of 23.2 kilometres (14.4 miles), which usually leads to broader surface-level damage, and tremors recorded as far west as the Israeli coast of the Mediterranean and as far south as Baghdad.
Across the border in
Iraq, the earthquake killed at least nine people and injured 550 others, all in the country’s northern, semi-autonomous Kurdish region, according to its Interior Ministry.
More than 400 aftershocks have struck since, leaving even those with homes to return to afraid to retrieve their belongings.
Iran, which sits on several geological fault lines, is prone to earthquakes. A magnitude 6.6 quake in 2003 killed 26,000 in the city of Bam.
Pakistan dispatches relief assistance to earthquake affectees in Iran
Last Updated On
17 November,2017 08:03 pm
A C130 airplane carrying relief assistance landed in Iran to help people in earthquake affected area
ISLAMABAD (
Dunya News) – Islamabad dispatched a C130 plane carrying relief assistance for the affectees of the deadly earthquake that struck Iran-Iraq border area last week, the Government of
Pakistantold in an official press release on Friday.
Over
400 were reportedly killed after the quake that hit Iran on November 12. It wreaked havoc particularly in the Western Iranian province of Kermanshah.
The relief assistance consists of the items identified by the Iranian side in accordance with the relief requirements in the earthquake affected area. The consignment will reach Tehran tonight where it will be handed over to Iranian authorities, Foreign Office told.
Recalling Iran s help to
Pakistan in the aftermath of the earthquake in 2005 and floods in 2010, the
Pakistani government said it is deeply grieved at the immense loss of lives and destruction caused to our Iranian brothers in the earthquake that jolted the bordering regions of Iran and Iraq.
President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbais had earlier sent their messages of solidarity with the Iranian people and offered all possible support by
Pakistan in this hour of need.
Foreign Office added, “The two brotherly countries have a tradition of helping each other during the natural calamities.”
