Quake victim found alive after 13 days

By Ali Akbar Dareini
The Associated Press

	MAJID / GETTY IMAGES Buried under rubble for 13 days, a 57-year-old man was rescued after a devastating earthquake hit Bam, Iran.
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"It's a miracle," Dr. Mahdi Shadnoush said yesterday of the rescue of the man, who was identified only as Jalil. "He had no access to food, but only water."

It was not known how Jalil got water, but the doctor said the ruins of the home where he was found were wet.

A sense of normalcy was slowly returning to Bam as hundreds of workers cleared the main streets, banks opened and street lights were kept lit, even in the day, to demonstrate the improving situation since the 6.6-magnitude quake hit Dec. 26, killing more than 30,000 people.

Searchers found Jalil late Wednesday after people alerted them to an area where they thought a body was buried. He was able to mouth his name to the rescuers before losing consciousness, said Mohammad Reza Tahmasebi, administrator of the Ukrainian field hospital where Jalil was being treated.

	MAJID / GETTY IMAGES Utility workers repair power lines along a street yesterday in Bam, Iran. About 90 percent of the city's buildings were destroyed in the earthquake that stuck Dec. 26 and killed an estimated 30,000 people.

By yesterday, his condition had improved.

"He is almost conscious now," said Shadnoush, chief physician at the hospital. "From time to time, he opens his eyes and he is breathing smoother now."

Jalil was from Narmanshir, a town 35 miles outside Bam and came to the city the day before the earthquake for medical treatment.

People rarely survive being buried under earthquake rubble without food or water for more than three days. On Saturday, a rescue team found a 97-year-old woman alive, buried in her home for almost nine days.

Hundreds of municipal workers from the capital, Tehran, and other cities worked yesterday to clear Bam's streets.

"Our job is to lessen the hardship survivors in Bam have gone through and provide them with a sort of temporary relief: beauty and tidiness," Yousef Salehi said, as he swept a square in central Bam.

Banks were open, although the buildings were damaged and some had no electricity.

Many nations have provided aid to the devastated city, including medical personnel and supplies, but the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies put out an appeal yesterday for $42 million to help Bam recover.

"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.

The federation estimated 75,000 people were homeless, with thousands sleeping outdoors in freezing nighttime temperatures.

At the same time, the U.N. Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland launched an appeal on behalf of nine U.N. agencies for $29.4 million in emergency aid.

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