Yaghob Kahrobaei
Once more, the latest earthquake highlights Red Crescent response in Iran. Following a series of destructive tremors, a 6.0 quake (on the Richter scale) hit disaster-prone areas in the province of Lorestan, in the vicinity of Borujerd and Doroud, two cities more than 330 kilometres southwest of Tehran, between the late Thursday 30 March and early Friday morning.
It left at least 63 people dead, 1,418 injured and others missing. Thousands of homes, dozens of schools and clinics were damaged or destroyed.
Survivors talk about the days before the earthquake and how they were involved in celebrating the Nowruz holidays - the Persian New Year which started on 21 March, to last for two weeks – along with family members, when the tremor damaged or flattened hundreds of villages.
They went on saying that Red Crescent volunteers, with the help of local inhabitants, recovered bodies from the rubble. But some villagers are continuing their search for those who are still missing.
According to local authorities, there have been two moderate earthquakes, one of which measured 5.2 in magnitude. It hit the region some 21 hours before the strongest tremor.
After the disaster which turned the rural areas into rubble, several aftershocks continued to jolt quake-hit areas, with the latest measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale, occurring at 22:15 hours local time (19:45 hours GMT) on Monday 2 April.
A local official says that the number of casualties was reduced since an earthquake warning had been issued by the State authorities throughout the province, encouraging villagers to stay out of their homes after the quakes on the preceding Thursday and Friday. Villagers had been asked to move to safer ground by the authorities on time.
But how is life for victims currently? Survivors still gaze at their destroyed houses and search for belongings under the debris in villages near Doroud. Most of them have also lost dozens of sheep and goats which are their main assets.
The Iranian Red Crescent, in cooperation with government officials, set up shelters housing thousands of people who were forced from their homes and those left homeless by the disaster have been settled in Red Crescent tents.
The Red Crescent reports that more than 5,000 food baskets have been distributed among the beneficiaries so far and around 975 rescue and relief workers are still providing essential services to the quake-hit community in Lorestan.
There are also three Red Crescent psychological support teams dispatched from the neighbouring provinces of Hamedan, ChaharMahalo-Bakhtiyari and Khuzestan, spread out over the area and working, in eleven-member groups, to help the quake survivors overcome the trauma.