Headcount on

President Mohammad Khatami has admitted Iran cannot cope on its own. The official IRNA news agency quoted Iran’s Interior Ministry as saying assistance would be welcome from every corner of the globe other than Israel.

Swiss rescuers with sniffer dogs were the first foreign team to start hunting for trapped survivors, Iranian television reported.

The cemeteries in the Iranian city were crammed to overflowing with fully-clothed corpses and a stench of death was beginning to pervade the streets. The International Red Crescent has advised people to wear gloves and facemasks because of fears of an epidemic breaking out.

Many residents were still pinned under the rubble and homeless survivors awoke from a piercingly cold night huddled under woollen blankets to find a city without water and power.

Exhausted, dust-covered rescue worker Omid Alipour said his team had only dug out three injured persons during the night: ‘‘We don’t have anything, just our bare hands.” The Interior Ministry confirmed on Saturday that the death toll stood at 20,000, State television said.

The UN, European Union, Russia, China, Poland, Japan, Turkey and others also heeded Iran’s appeals for help. They pledged doctors, medical supplies, financial aid and rescuers with sniffer dogs and equipment to locate survivors. A 68-strong British rescue team with sniffer dogs, special cameras and listening devices touched down in Kerman near Bam early on Saturday.

‘‘We need help, otherwise we will be pulling corpses, not the injured, out of the rubble,’’ Brigadier Mohammadi, commander of the Army in south-east Iran, said.

UN officials said they were releasing an emergency grant of $90,000 to help Iran handle the aftermath of the quake and had sent experts to help assess the damage. UNICEF said it was sending medical supplies and called for $3,50,000 in aid. — (Reuters)