Iran denies quakecaused by nuke test

President Mohammad Khatami has denied that the killer quake that struck southeast Iran was caused by a secret nuclear test.

"These allegations have spread, but they are completely unfounded," said the president, who on Monday and Tuesday visited the Bam region at the epicenter of the quake that he estimated could cost 50,000 lives.

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Iran is building its first nuclear reactor but has repeatedly denied accusations from the United States and Israel that it has embarked on a covert nuclear arms program.

"Our religious principles, our security and defense doctrine leave no room for nuclear arms," he said.

Survivors of the devastating earthquake in southeast Iran spent another night in the freezing cold as relief, including an 80-strong U.S. team, continued to flood in today.

Newspapers meanwhile reported five cases of near miraculous escapes, including a baby and young girl pulled out of the rubble five days after the quake.

Elsewhere in earthquake-prone Iran, a tremor measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale rocked the town of Pahleh in the southwest today, the state news agency IRNA reported.

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Strong winds were blowing making matters worse for the survivors who slept six or seven in white tents emblazoned with the Iranian Red Crescent emblem. With most houses reduced to piles of bricks, people huddled around campfires under gray skies as the wind whipped up clouds of dust.

In many districts, the only things still standing after the Dec. 26 quake were the palm and eucalyptus trees, incongruously sprouting amid the piles of bricks and twisted metal.

Hundreds of imams were mobilized in Bam for rushed mass burials. Mourners wore masks as protection against both the dust and the stench of decomposing bodies.

Bodies were being ferried into a new cemetery on trucks and swiftly unloaded for a brief prayer ceremony.

In the provincial capital of Kerman, less than 120 miles from Bam, where the ferocious 6.3 quake struck, snow on the ground and fog delayed aid flights.

Sixty U.S. medical specialists, including seven surgeons, were to set up a field hospital in the center of Bam, where only a few buildings have been left standing.

The medical team, along with some 20 specialists from the United States Agency for International Development, are the first official U.S. representatives to set foot in Iran since diplomatic links were broken more than 20 years ago.

The team, which includes 14 doctors, 20 nurses and 12 paramedics, has everything from pediatrics specialists to a burn-specialty unit.

About 130 planes from 40 countries have flown in emergency aid and equipment, while 1,700 foreign rescue workers have also rushed in.

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