Traditional mourning period ends for Iran's earthquake victims: Red Cross

GENEVA (AFP) Feb 04, 2004
A traditional 40-day mourning period for the 43,000 people who died in Iran's devastating earthquake ended Wednesday and the rubble where houses once stood can now be shifted, the international Red Cross said.

Relief and reconstruction efforts have been underway since the disaster flattened the southeastern city of Bam on December 26, said John English, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' operations manager for the Iran quake.

But on a more symbolic level life for the survivors can only now start to retun to normal, English explained.

"It's their cultural and relgious response to something like that," he said.

"The mourning is over now and people can go back to their normal life, although in this case life is hardly normal but it sort of marks a watershed in people's reactions to this," English told AFP.

The tremor, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale, destroyed some 85 percent of the city and rubble in the streets and other areas has already been cleared away over the past 40 days, English said.

"But I think for the houses, they do leave them because there are people still buried under them ... (It is) a sort of mark of respect for the dead," he said, adding that it was unclear how many more bodies would be recovered once the rubble is cleared.

A new official toll released earlier in the day revised the number of deaths from the earthquake to 43,000 from 41,000 thought previously, making it the deadliest in the world for more than 27 years.

The Red Cross, which has been helping with relief efforts since the tragedy struck, said it has received 47.4 percent of a 51.9 million Swiss francmillion dollar, 33 million euro) appeal launched in early January to deal with the aftermath.

But, although the remaining money was vital, the agency was not yet worried about the funding gap, said a Red Cross spokeswoman, Marie-Francoise Borel.

"Obviously we are hoping that more appeal money will come in," she said.

"The worry is always when the crisis period is over and media attention and donor attention wanes and goes off to other things."

This week the Iranian Red Crescent and World Food Programme are running a second major food campaign to help some 210,000 needy people in and around Bam.

"The priority of the Iranian Red Crescent is the continuity of the relief operation for the people of Bam, at least for the next two years," said Mostafa Mohaghegh, head of the international dapartment of the Iranian Red Crescent.

TERRA.WIRE