BAM, IRAN also called, "The City of Mud" Karimi was a very broken man as he stood there in the street holding his small daughter, Nazenine in his arms.
The night before, Nazenine had just finished a drawing that she had made for her Papa and he was tucking her into bed for the night when she gave him four kisses.
"Why four kisses," Karimi asked her?
"Because I might not see you tomorrow Papa," Nazenine answered.
Little did tiny Nazenine know just how true her words to her Papa would be. For Nazenine was a resident of the City of Bam, Iran and the following morning at about 5:30, her city would be shaken by a 6.5 earthquake.
Bam, Iran was a city of about 80,000 people before the quake occured. Now, after this terrible disaster, about half of the citie's people may be lost.
"This is a terrible disaster," said Akbar Alavi, the governor of the city of Kerman, "we fear that our death toll may reach upward as high as 40,000."
Known as, "The City of Mud," for its ancient buildings of mud, straw, and palm tree trunks. Many of the buildings there had stood for some 2000 years or more. Now there are very few, if any buildings left remaining as many of them crumbled to the ground like sand castles. The few that were left standing are unsafe to go into, so many people had to sleep in the streets last night in near freezing tempertures with only blankets for shelter.
Help is on its way from nations such as Japan, Russia, Australia, Germany, and China, among others. The United States has also offered it's assistance and the governor, Alavi said that Iran will accept it.
However, I feel that it should be duely noted that aid offered from the nation of Israel was ungraciously rejected.
Tears were streaming down the face of Mohammed Karimi, now in his 30's, as he took both his wife and his four year old daughter, Nazenine to the cemetary for burial.
Bam, has been virtually turned into a waste land. GCJ