Iran-Iraq Earthquake Kills More Than 450
November 14, 2017 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
The Iranian Red Crescent used rescue dogs to search for survivors, as it has since an earthquake in the southern city of Bam in 2003 that killed more than 20,000 people. The country’s religious leaders regard dogs as unclean, but the use of guard and rescue dogs is accepted.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, introduced a program to build low-income housing, including in Pol-e Zahab. After the quake on Sunday, his political opponents said that many of the buildings had been poorly constructed, but his defenders said that the buildings were on fault lines, and that nothing could have been done.
Initial reports from the Kurdish region of Iraq indicated less damage and fewer deaths on that side of the border. In Sulaimaniya, the second-largest city in Iraq’s Kurdish region, residents described feeling heavy tremors but said there was no notable building damage. Residents in the oil-rich town of Kirkuk, roughly 50 miles to the west, reported similar damage.
Ali Namiq, a resident of the town Darbandikhan, Iraq, said a building was flattened by the quake. “The building fell on a seven-member family,” he told Reuters. “We managed to rescue only five out of them, while the two others were killed. It was the first time for me to see an earthquake. It is a divine act that no one can prevent.”
In the town of Kalar, Iraq, the quake sent items tumbling from shelves in a supermarket, causing shoppers to flee.
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The quake occurred about 20 miles south of the Iraqi city of Halabja, where Saddam Hussein’s government launched a poison gas attack that killed more than 5,000 people, mostly Kurds, on March 16, 1988, in the closing days of the Iran-Iraq war.
The earthquake was felt as far as the Mediterranean coast of Israel. Shiite pilgrims in the Iraqi city of Karbala, for the annual religious commemoration of Arba’een, posted videos of people gathering on the streets after the earthquake.
Iran lies on dozens of fault lines and is prone to quakes. In 2012, a double earthquake in the north of the country killed 300 people. When residents learned of the government’s lackluster relief efforts, some started organizing aid groups themselves. After that quake, the United States, which does not maintain normal diplomatic relations with Iran, sent several planeloads of aid.
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