Sunday, Dec. 12, 2004

A Year After the Quake: Still Digging Out

By NAHID SIAMDOUST | Bam

Mohsen Azimi holds the engraving machine tight and etches the image of an open book onto the base of a gray tombstone. He puts the date of "sunrise" on one page, and "sunset" on the other, as Iranians refer to birth and death. It's 10 p.m., way past his usual working hours, but Azimi, 27, has had so much business he's brought his brother-in-law from a city 800 km away to lend a hand. Gravestones have been in heavy demand since shortly after this ancient city was destroyed by an earthquake one year ago. But people's lives were so devastated that some survivors are only now getting around to placing cemetery monuments for their loved ones. "Many haven't had the nerve to officially mark the graves of all those they've lost," Azimi says.

The natural disaster that struck last Dec. 26 in Bam, 300 km from the Pakistani border, was one of the 10 most lethal in recent history. Iranian officials have revised down the initial death toll from 50,000 to 26,271, but many of the surviving population of about 100,000 believe the true number is closer to the initial estimate. In 12 seconds of annihilation, the quake destroyed 85% of the city's buildings, flattening thousands of traditional mud-brick homes as well as Bam's approximately 2,000-year-old Citadel, an imposing clay fortress that once adorned the ancient Silk Road.

Despite the hard work of Iranian and international relief agencies, Bam remains a disaster zone. The streets are full of bricks, tangled metal and rubble. For now, many survivors live in prefabricated 12-sq-m living quarters called "connex." Cargo containers on the roadsides function as grocery stores and barbershops, but business is slow. People want an end to the provisional lifestyle they've led for the past year, but Iranian authorities have yet to approve a master plan for the $1 billion reconstruction effort.

An even more daunting challenge is rebuilding people's spirit. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is running a psychosocial rehab program, aimed at helping Bam's children come to terms with the death and destruction they witnessed. Shokrollah Arab, 10, was lying next to his parents when they were crushed by a collapsing wall. Since then he's lived in an orphanage, with a tidy bed that he never sleeps in. Fearing

another quake, he insists on sleeping outside on the portico despite freezing temperatures. "If anything happens, I'll be able to flee," he says gravely.

In the rehab program, such children are asked to express their emotions in songs and drawings and given individual counseling. "There is a lot of invisible reconstruction going on," says Kari Egge, UNICEF's director in Iran.

There are encouraging signs, such as the 24,000 children who've returned to school in makeshift classrooms. But the Bamis, as they are called, are barely beginning to recover from the disappearance of their prized city, especially the imposing Citadel, which protected them against invading armies throughout Iran's history. "Bam without the Citadel is like a beehouse without honey," says Akbar Panjalizadeh, 61, a retired high school teacher. He owns a hostel for backpackers, where a tourist — a British motorcyclist — perished in the quake. Nonetheless, Panjalizadeh is busy rebuilding the guesthouse, sure that Bam will return to its former glory. "The Citadel didn't belong just to Bam, or Iran, it belonged to the world," he says. "They will rebuild it."

But for now, much of the action in this city takes place in the cemetery. In the extended section, disorderly rows of graves all bear the same "sunset" date — 5 Dey, 1382, the Iranian calendar date for Dec. 26, 2003. Mass graves abound. Azimi, who moved to Bam from far away after the quake, says his mission will be accomplished — and he'll return to his family — the day after the anniversary. "The graves without stones by the anniversary," he says, "must be of Bamis who have left no one behind."