A Glimmer of Hope Amidst the Ruins of Bam

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By Suzanne Charest in Bam

Almost a week after a devastating earthquake struck Bam in southeastern Iran, a pregnant woman was miraculously pulled alive from the rubble.

At around 4:00 p.m. on January 1, a team of four Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) volunteers saw a local man waving and shouting that he heard a voice from one of the piles of crumbled brinks that was once a home.

Seyed Abduimajid Azmi and three other Red Crescent volunteers from the province of Isfahan began a frantic search for the source of the voice, using a sniffer dog from a foreign rescue team. From two directions, they dug with their bare hands and a small pick.

"We reached a heavy iron door and heard a faint scratching sound," said Azmi. In what once was the living room of a small house, they found a pregnant woman barely conscious, wedged under a desk that was tipped on its side. "She had survived because she had been knocked unconscious for the first three or four days, so her energy had been saved," explained Azmi.

Mostafa Mohaghegh, Director General of International Affairs for the IRCS describes the effect of the rescue on the close to 1,000 staff and volunteers working in Bam: "this rescue became very big news and was very moving for all of us. It provided a boost to the morale of our team that has worked non-stop for many days."

The woman was evacuated to Kerman where she gave birth to a healthy baby-a small glimmer of hope in a city crushed by one of the last decade's worst earthquakes.