Iran calls for more aid, toll may touch 50,000 mark

Another senior official confirmed the forecast, though President Mohammad Khatami called it premature. Some hungry children may have died in the freezing nights tormenting tens of thousands forced to sleep in the open at Bam, putting a premium on blankets and clothing as well as medicines.

‘‘We cannot say right now what the exact death toll is. We should wait until the rescue work and all the activities in Bam are finished,’’ Khatami told reporters in nearby Kerman, saying that the present death toll was ‘‘definitely not 50,000’’.

Such a figure could make the earthquake around the ancient Silk Road city the most lethal since one at Tangshan in China that killed at least five Times that many in 1976.

The death toll at Bam, 1,000 km southeast of Tehran, may surpass that in northwestern Iran in 1990 and be double that of quakes in Armenia in 1988 and Gujarat in 2001.

As state television reported 28,000 bodies had been buried in mass graves, relief agencies were calling for warm clothing and blankets to ward off the bitter overnight frost.

‘‘Two children from my family, 12 and 13 years old, survived the earthquake, but they died from exposure while out on the street sometime on Friday night,’’ one middle-aged woman said. ‘‘Half my family is still under the debris. We buried 14 family members yesterday,’’ Marzieh added. ‘‘Writers and poets should try to find a word bigger than disaster.’’

In Bam, armies of street cleaners using brooms, shovels and wheelbarrows began to sweep up debris in near deserted streets.

The scale of the disaster, which according to UN estimates damaged 90 percent of Bam’s buildings, prompted swift pledges of aid, even from nations with poor ties with the Islamic republic. Six of Iran’s Arab Gulf neighbours late on Monday pledged $400 million to help Tehran with relief and rebuilding.(Reuters)