Frightened of aftershocks and shivering from cold, thousands of Iranians spent the night in tents and temporary shelters after a po-werful earthquake struck southeast Iran, killing at least 420 people. In the small town of Khanouk, close to Zarand, 100 men, women and children abandoned their shattered homes to sleep rough on the floor of the town?s main mosque, which was little damaged by the tremor.

?Please help us, it?s winter. What are we to do?? wailed an elderly man who gave only his first name, Ali. Elsewhere in the town, deluged by cold, driving rain, people took refuge where they could. One family of four settled down to sleep in a white pick-up truck. Another group took over a minibus.

Others huddled around camp fires or erected tents in front of the rubble of their destroyed homes. ?Our children are so scared they don?t even want to go inside the tents,? said taxi driver Gholamreza Asadi, 45. Next to him sat his drained-looking wife, Sedigeh, dressed in the traditional head-to-foot black chador. The shock of the quake forced two months pregnant Sedigeh to have a miscarriage. ?I think this must have been God?s gift to us before the New Year,? she said sarcastically.

The Iranian New Year is celebrated on March 21. Despite accusations by Washington that Iran supports terrorism and is secretly building nuclear arms, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States was willing to offer Iran help with the relief effort. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also said the United Nations was ready to assist.

But Iran has so far said it does not need foreign assistance and local officials said thousands of tents and tonnes of blankets and food have been distributed. ?We have done everything to make sure that people will not spend the night in the open air in the quake-stricken areas,? Kerman province Governor Ali Karimi told state television.

He acknowledged, however, that relief teams had struggled to reach at least five remote villages in the rugged, rain-soaked mountains. Karimi put the death toll at 420 but said that would probably rise. Aid and medical workers had treated about 900 injured people, he said. Many in Khanouk, however, complained aid had not arrived.

?There?s been no help at all. I myself pulled six people out of the rubble, four of whom were dead,? said Mehdi Assadi, who, like many residents, was guarding the remains of his shattered home while his family slept at the mosque.

?We have nothing to eat or drink,? he said. Geological experts said the depth of the earthquake below ground, and the fact it was centered on a sparsely populated area, prevented a repeat of the heavy death toll which occurred in Bam.

Parisa HAFEZI

RESCUE PARTIES

Two women pulled alive from Iran quake rubble

■ Revolutionary Guardsmen pulled two women alive from the rubble in an isolated mountain village in southeastern Iran yesterday, over 24 hours after a powerful earthquake struck, killing at least 420 people. Reuters journalists in Houdkan village saw one 25-year-old woman, Zahra Hosseini, emerge smiling but complaining of back pains from the mess of bricks and mud that had been her home. Locals said another woman, 18-year-old Zahra Mirzai had also been rescued almost unscathed earlier on Wednesday after a passerby heard her cries for help. Both were taken by ambulance to the nearby town of Zarand. The rescues partly lifted the gloom in Houdkan, a village which had a population of around 500, where Revolutionary Guardsmen say they have pulled nearly 150 bodies from the rubble since the 6.4 magnitude quake hit early on Tuesday morning. Amir, from the nearby city of Kerman who rushed to Houdkan on Tuesday to come to the aid of relatives there, said he had heard Mirzai crying from beneath the ruins of her home. Using their bare hands and shovels, locals and Revolutionary Guardsmen dug her out. ?She was barely hurt,? said Amir, who refused to give his family name. ?When I asked her what happened she said that as soon as she felt the quake she ran towards the door and stood under the frame because she had heard it?s a safe place,? he said.