Chance: Iranian city is 'completely devastated'
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CNN correspondent Matthew Chance
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Rescuers continue the search for survivors. CNN's Matthew Chance.
The death toll from the earthquake in the ancient Iranian city of Bam likely to rise.
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BAM, Iran (CNN) -- Rescue workers in Iran's ancient city of Bam are digging through the rubble to find anyone still alive after Friday's devastating magnitude 6.6 earthquake.
The homeless survivors huddle around fires to stay warm against near-freezing temperatures without power or water available. CNN's Matthew Chance spoke to CNN anchor Carol Lin with the latest details from Bam.
CHANCE: The international rescue teams that have been deployed here in the remote southeast Iranian town of Bam completely devastated by that earthquake in the early hours of Friday morning and the very strong aftershocks that followed are, as you say, continuing to pick through the rubble of their flattened city.
The international teams, as a matter of fact, suspended their work this evening and say they'll start at first light tomorrow. But, all across this city in mounds of rubble you can see ordinary Iranians using their hands, using their own shovels in a desperate bid to try and find survivors and to dig out their dead loved ones who have been completely covered by this disintegrated city.
Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has issued an urgent appeal across the country, calling for the people here to come together to unite to get through this natural catastrophe.
Also, [he is] requesting international assistance because it's been acknowledged here from the outset that this disaster is so big that it far outstrips the ability of the Iranian government to cope [with it]. And that's why these international rescue teams and medical teams have begun coming to Bam to provide whatever assistance they can as well, including a team from the United States preparing to make its way here, some 200 personnel, rescue workers, medical teams, as well as a great deal of medical supplies.
That's been greeted, of course, by the people of Iran with -- also the people here in Bam with a degree of welcomeness, saying that it may be too much to expect this humanitarian crisis to jolt Iran and the United States into a close and deep friendship. But it's certainly the hope of many people here on the streets that you talk to that this disaster could serve to bring the two countries slightly closer together, perhaps to improve their very bitter relations at this time.
LIN: All right, thank you very much. Matthew Chance reporting live from Bam.
