Rescuers find man alive after 13 days under rubble of quake

[senorpepr]

BAM, Iran (AP): A 57-year-old man was pulled from the rubble of Iran's earthquake, barely conscious but still alive because he had a source of water during the 13 days he was buried, a doctor and a hospital official said Thursday.

The man quickly slipped into unconsciousness, however, and his prognosis was uncertain.

"It's a miracle,'' said Dr. Mahdi Shadnoush, the chief physician at the Ukrainian field hospital where the man named Jalil was being treated after searchers rescued him Wednesday night. "He had no access to food but only water.''

An Associated Press reporter saw Jalil, bruised and covered with white cloth on a hospital bed. Jalil had tubes coming out of his mouth and nose but his chest could be seen rising and falling. It was unclear whether he was on a respirator.

Jalil was thin but did not appear emaciated. The hair on his head was gray, but his beard and mustache were mostly black.

Shadnoush was unsure about the source of Jalil's water but he said the ruins of a home where Jalil was found were wet. Shadnoush said that the case was difficult to explain scientifically -- but water apparently would have been the key. People rarely survive being buried under earthquake rubble for more than three days.

Jalil was conscious enough to mouth out his name to searchers who dug him out of the rubble, but he slipped into unconsciousness after just a few minutes, said Mohammad Reza Tahmasebi, who is in charge of the Ukrainian hospital. Doctors were unsure whether Jalil can survive.

"We hope to save his life,'' Shadnoush said. "A medical team is looking after him. We are constantly checking his condition. We hope to keep him alive, but we cannot guarantee it.''

Jalil is from the town of Narmanshir, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) outside Bam and had come here on Dec. 25 for medical treatment. Jalil spent the night at his sister's house, where he was buried by the 6.6-magnitude earthquake that struck the next morning, flattening much of Bam and killing more than 30,000 people.

Authorities were trying to find Jalil's relatives in Narmanshir so they could bring them to Bam. Tahmasebi said Jalil was a member of the Baluch ethnic group, known for tolerating harsh conditions.

Searchers found Jalil after other residents alerted them to an area where they thought a body was still buried.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies put out an appeal Thursday for US$42 million to help Bam recover from the quake that ruined much of the ancient city.

"The scale of the disaster is so great that emergency relief will be required for several months to come,'' federation president Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro said in a statement. "The people of Bam need adequate shelter, food, health services and sanitation for the foreseeable future. If they don't get this, we risk seeing epidemics developing and more suffering and heartache.''

The federation estimated that 75,000 people are believed to have been left homeless, with thousands sleeping outdoors in freezing nighttime temperatures.

The United Nations is separately appealing for more millions of dollars to help Bam.