Iran's Supreme Leader vowed today to rebuild the city of Bam, as rescue workers all but gave up hope of finding more survivors of the earthquake which killed up to 30,000 people.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said that by this morning 25,000 victims of the earthquake had been buried. "Given the scale of the damage the number of casualties will rise in coming hours," he told the official IRNA news agency.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei flew to Bam, 1,000 km (600 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, and pledged to return the ancient Silk Road city to its former glory.
"We share your sorrow, those lost are our children. We will rebuild Bam stronger than before," he said, addressing a crowd in one of the city's shattered squares.
In a rare moment of joy, officials said a baby girl had beendiscovered alive in the arms of her dead mother buried under aflattened building.Rescuers said six-month-old Nassim had been saved by hermother's embrace, which shielded her from falling debris.
The stench of death has filled the city, despite help from around the world. US airmen worked alongside soldiers of a state once branded a member of an "axis of evil" by US President George W. Bush, after bringing aid supplies on the first US flight to Iran for two decades.
Round-the-clock relief efforts are being hindered by the piles of bodies in the streets, overflowing cemeteries, bitter cold at night, rain, aftershocks and some looting.
Rescue workers digging for the fourth day said they were no longer finding survivors, only the remains of people killed in the world's most lethal quake for at least a decade.
Some 2,000 people, including an infant found in the arms of her dead mother, have been pulled out alive, IRNA said.
But Bam's collapsed mud-brick buildings left few air pockets and so there have been proportionally fewer survivors than in earthquakes in places where reinforced concrete was more common, rescuers said.
Some 30,000 people were injured in the quake, which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale, and aid workers put the number of homeless at more than 100,000.
Aid poured in from around the world after President Mohammad Khatami appealed for help from anywhere but Israel. In contrast, Iran rejected offers of international assistance when a quake killed 36,000 in 1990.