Iranian Quake Official Toll Rises to 500

NIR, Iran —  Rescue teams fought snow, high winds and wild dogs Saturday as they tried to bring help to an earthquake-devastated region in northwestern Iran. The official death toll rose to 500, but doctors and aid workers said thousands may have died.

The quake rocked the city of Ardabil and the town of Meshgin Shahr on Friday afternoon, damaging 83 villages--some were razed--and injuring about 2,000 people, state-run Tehran radio reported. Rescue and aid workers estimated that at least 3,000 people had died.

Deputy Interior Minister Rasoul Zargar told Iranian television that relief workers would set up temporary shelters for the 35,000 people left homeless in the mountainous region.

The Iranian quake was one of a number that have jolted Asian countries over the last couple of days, including temblors in Armenia, China and Pakistan. Scientists said there was no evidence that any of them were connected.

In Iran, rescue teams bearing tents and food for the stricken villages near the Talish Mountains were slowed by snowstorms, whipping winds and landslides.

An aid worker in the village of Golestan said he heard a cry for help from a pile of rubble, but wild dogs surrounding the spot kept him from getting any nearer.

In Nir, 25 miles southwest of Ardabil, security officers watched over a sports center where 13 bodies lay wrapped in blankets on a basketball court.

“There were hundreds of bodies here last night,” said Ali Rahimpour, one of the guards. “There were so many corpses that we had to leave many of them outside.”

A teacher in the nearby town of Sarain said he counted 2,000 dead taken to the cemetery in Ardabil.

In the village of Villadareh, among the hardest hit, residents beat their chests in grief as volunteers pulled the bodies of four children from mounds of rubble. One of them, a toddler, still clung to a small toy car.

Iran estimated the quake’s magnitude at 5.5. The U.S. National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., said it measured 6.1.

A more powerful quake struck Baluchistan province in western Pakistan early Friday. The magnitude-7.3 quake killed at least 100 people and injured dozens others.

Other areas in the region also were rocked by quakes Saturday, including far western China, where two people were killed and at least three injured, state seismologists said. The magnitude-6 quake was centered in Xinjiang region, about 2,000 miles west of Beijing, the Chinese capital.

In Armenia, an earthquake struck near the capital, Yerevan, but there were no reports of damage or injuries.

And Japan was hit by a moderate earthquake centered 20 miles off the coast, not far from Tokyo.