"At night I have nightmares. And when the ground shakes, I run out into the open air," he explains.

Dozens of aftershocks have hit Bam since the initial massive quake reduced much of the city to rubble and claimed the lives of at least 30,000 people. Each one sparks panic and inflicts more damage on a population ill-equipped to cope with fresh trauma.

Foreign aid workers now say that with the immediate rush of treating quake-related injuries over, the focus is now shifting towards easing the deep psychological scarring endured by Bam's survivors.

"We took in a child of eleven. He was prostrated, in a foetal position. In fact he was not injured, he was just a traumatised orphan," said Mohammed Ali Beikbaghban, and Iranian doctor working with a French medical team here.

Jean-Francois Corty of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said medical workers were now coming across more and more cases of traumatised children.

"There are mute children, who cannot look people in the eyes or hold their hands. First of all, we have to create contact by getting them to draw, express themselves," he said.

But with every aftershock, he warned, "the trauma worsens". He said MSF had so far brought in two psychologists to the city, 80 percent of which has been reduced to ruins.

"The social fabric has been ripped. We have to try and restore some dignity to the victims, rebuild their social links."

Such is the mental health impact of the disaster, even taboos regarding trauma -- in a society where people are more accustomed to taking psychological blows in their stride -- are beginning to crumble.

Keramat Asqari, a man queuing up outside a Ukranian medical facility, admits he is unable to comfort his young son standing alongside him. He has already lost his other son and two daughters.

"I am afraid at night," says his son, 15-year-old Mahdi, his arm in plaster from his more visible injury. "I wake up a lot, and in my nightmare there is another earthquake."

The father is at his wits' end: "I would be lying if I said that I was not terrified."

"We are trying to comfort Mahdi. I told him that an earthquake is something natural, and we talk to him about it. But if they offer us pyschological help, we will accept," he added.

"We are seeing more and more people who come for consultations for injuries linked to the earthquake, and after five minutes or so they just break down in tears," noted French doctor David Gunepin.

Denis McClean, head of the media service of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said relief efforts would soon provide more focus towards the traumatised -- especially the 1,300 children left orphaned or without contact with their family.

"In the Iranian Crescent, there are a number of volunteers giving special attention to traumatised people. We want to systematise that," he said, adding the Icelandic and Danish specialists to train local staff were awaited in the coming days.

TERRA.WIRE