Iran?s earthquake-devastated city of Bam was filled with the stench of death yesterday as top foreign rescuers warned hopes were fading for any more survivors from a disaster that killed at least 20 000 people.

Iranian state television said 13 000 bodies had been recovered so far. From the United States to China, Britain to Australia, nations rushed to respond to Iran?s appeals and sent rescue workers, doctors, tents and cash to help deal with what appeared to be the world?s most lethal earthquake in at least 10 years.

Cemeteries in Bam were overflowing with fully clothed corpses and hundreds of bodies had been tipped into trenches hollowed out by mechanical diggers, witnesses said.

The predawn quake on Friday also injured about 30 000 people when it flattened about 70 percent of the mostly mud-brick buildings in the ancient Silk Road city.

Bam airport was converted into a sprawling, makeshift hospital and rubble-strewn pavements were lined with injured, some on intravenous drips.

?The number of dead could be far more than 20 000 ? many places are untouched. We are beginning to smell the stench of death. If we haven?t cleared the area by the end of the week there will be a threat of epidemics,? said one aid worker.

Looting by armed young men

Witnesses saw some looting when vans of young men armed with pistols and Kalashnikovs drove into Bam and stole Red Crescent tents, while others on motorbikes chased aid trucks, picking up blankets thrown out by soldiers.

?These guys have legs and can run after trucks, the aid is meant for those like me who cannot move,? said one old woman sitting at the roadside. Residents said relief efforts were chaotic. ?There is no organization. Whoever is stronger takes the aid,? said Mehdi Dehghani.

President Mohammad Khatami said Iran could not cope on its own, as authorities battled to accommodate thousands of homeless people on a second bitterly cold night. ?Everyone is doing their best to help, but the disaster is so huge that I believe no matter how much is done we cannot meet the people?s expectations,? Khatami said on state television.

Hopes of more survivors fade

The Interior Ministry confirmed on Saturday the death toll stood at 20 000, but the chaos and scale of the disaster made it difficult for officials to produce exact casualty figures. Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari said he could not make any forecasts about the final toll. But he said: ?In a city of something under 100 000 people, 70 percent of buildings collapsed. ... With this scale of damage, the number of dead and injured will be very high.?

Officials said many survivors should have been in tents by late on Saturday, but witnesses said a number spent the night in the open among palm groves around Bam, burning cardboard and any other material they could find to fend off the cold.

The quake measured 6.3 on the Richter scale and struck early on Friday when many people were at home asleep in Bam, some 600 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran.

Ari Vakkilainnen, leading a Finnish rescue team, said only 30 people were dug out alive overnight. ?I do not think that many people are alive because of the structure of the buildings,? he said. ?Someone could still be alive after 72 hours, but if they are losing blood they need water.?

Dust-coated Iranian rescue worker Ahmad Ali said he lacked the tools to do his job properly. ?We are using our bare hands. On Friday, a baby was pushed through the rubble by its parents. The parents died. We wanted to help so much but have no equipment,? he said.

In rare direct contact between Washington and Tehran, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Iran?s permanent representative to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, held telephone talks about aid.

US military flies in aid

A US Air force C-130 Hercules landed in Kerman, near Bam, with a first shipment of medical and humanitarian supplies. The US military said it planned to ship in around 70 tons of aid from logistics sites in the Gulf, in place for the US-led war on Iraq and its reconstruction.

Washington broke ties with the Iran after students stormed the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. In 2002, Bush branded Iran part of an ?axis of evil? for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction.

The Islamic Republic?s quick acceptance of help from the international community contrasted with its rejection in 1990 when a quake killed 36 000 people. It says help will be welcome from everywhere except Israel.

Bam, a popular tourist spot because of a historic citadel and other centuries-old buildings, has a history going back to the old Silk Road days when it was a stopover for merchants and travelers between China and Europe. A large part of the citadel was destroyed by the quake.

Chronology

Major earthquakes in Iran

Here is a short chronology of some of the major earthquakes in Iran in the last three decades.

Apr 10, 1972 - An earthquake with a radius of more than 250 miles struck southern Iran around Ghir Karzin. 5 374 people were killed. The quake measured 7.1 on the Richter scale.

Mar 22, 1977 - 167 people were killed when an earthquake struck the southeastern coastal region around the town of Bandar Abbas. It measured 7 on the Richter scale.

Apr 6/7, 1977 - 352 people were killed when an earthquake struck Isfahan province. It measured 6.5 on the Richter Scale.

Dec 21, 1977 - An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale struck the town of Zarand in Kerman Province, killing 521 people.

Sept 16, 1978 ? 15 000 people were killed by an earthquake which measured between 7.5 and 7.9 on the Richter scale. It levelled the town of Tabas and many other villages.

Jan 16, 1979 - An earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale struck Khorasan province, killing 199 people.

Nov 14, 1979 - An earthquake struck eastern Iran measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale. It struck a string of villages between Qaen and Khaf in Khorasan province, killing at least 385 people.

Jun 11, 1981 ? 1 027 people were killed and more than 800 injured. It measured 6.8 on the Richter scale. The town of Golbaf, 800 km (500 miles) southeast of Tehran, was destroyed.

Jun 21, 1990 ? 35 000 died and 100 000 were injured in the worst recorded disaster in Iran. The quake, which registered 7.7 on the Richter scale, devastated the Caspian regions of Gilan and Zanjan. Some 500 000 were made homeless.

Feb 28, 1997 - A quake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale killed about 1 000 people in northwestern Iran.

May 10, 1997 - A quake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale killed 1 560 people in rural areas of eastern Iran near the Afghan border.

Jun 22, 2002 - An earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale razed dozens of villages in north Iran?s Qazvin province killing 229.

Dec 26, 2003 - An earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale strikes the city of Bam, 1 000 km (600 miles) southeast of Tehran. More than 20 000 people have died.

Parisa Hafezi