The Persian Center family would like to offer their condolences to the friends & family of the thousands of people lost in the devastating earthquake in the City of Bam, Province of Kerman, Iran. Thousands more people are injured and in desperate need of our help. Please read more to see how you can get involved:

FUNDRAISING EVENT

Persian Center is hosting a fundraising dinner to raise money for earthquake relief efforts. The event will be on Sunday, January 4th, 2004 at the Santa Fe Bistro, 2142 Center Street, Berkeley, from 5-8 p.m.

The evening will include sharing of experiences, stories and images of "Bam", where many humanitarians from the City of Berkeley visited in April 2003, to distribute wheelchairs in conjunction with the Wheelchair Foundation.

A MINIMUM donation of $100 is requested, written to the American Red Cross, IRANIAN EARTHQUAKE. Checks will be collected at the door.

[Note: ALL proceeds for the evening will go directly to the Iranian Earthquake Relief Efforts as the event is co-sponsored by Mr. Soheyl Modarressi, who will underwrite all the cost for food, in honor of his late father, Mr. Seyed Hossein Modarressi, as well as Mr. Ahmad Behjati, proprietor of Santa Fe Bistro, who will be donating the venue and drinks for the evening.]

Due to limited space, your RSVP is kindly requested. For more information or to reserve a seat, please call 510-848-0264.

MEDICINE DRIVE:

Persian Center will be collecting NEW Medicine & Medical Supplies (only), to send to Iran immediately. Items can be delivered to 2029 Durant Avenue in Berkeley in the coming week as follows:

Monday, December 29th from 5-8 pm
Wednesday, December 31th from 3-6 pm
Thursday, January 1st from 5-8 pm
OR Sunday, January 4th at the Santa Fe Bistro

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! If you can volunteer your time, please contact us at 510-848-0264 to help with our Medicine Drive in the next two weeks. Thank you.

Cyrus Travel is sponsoring the relief efforts and has volunteered to send ALL medicine collected to Iran. Additionally, they will sponsor travel costs for any doctor who is willing to travel to Iran. Please contact Mr. Mansour Hariri at 415-398-6111 for more info.

Additional information and news on earthquake and relief efforts:

1. NIAC: Send aid to Iranian earthquake victims

2. Medicine Drive in San Jose:

"At least 20,000 people are said to have died as a huge earthquake flattens a city in southeast Iran. The ancient city of Bam has been devastated - most of its buildings have been flattened including two hospitals and a 16th Century citadel."

Everyone has heard the above news. We know the earthquake in Bam, Kerman-Iran, has destroyed the city. There are thousands of people who lost their lives in this devastating tragedy. There are also thousands of people who are injured and need our help. Two of my relatives have lost their loved ones in this earthquake and they are departing from San Francisco for Bam/Iran on Sunday. I am collecting medicines of all kind that are not expired so the families can take them to Iran for distribution to the injured people.

Please bring your extra or unused medicines especially Antibiotics & Painkillers to This Persian store "Bazar Norouz in 1390 S Bascom Ave., San Jose" as soon as possible. I also would like to ask you a favor of sharing this e-mail with whoever you think that could be of help.

I will go to Iran with my husband next week on January 4, 2004, and we will take some more medicine too. You can also donate money or blood to Red Cross near you. The Red Cross web address is www.redcross.org. Your help is appreciated in any way you can.

Kokab Ebrahimi
408-559-8300

3. From Iran House in Los Angeles:

We are about to establish a Found collecting aids to this devastating Incidents.

Please contribute your help to account # 7875152353 by TCF Bank or mail your check (Payable to Iran House) to:

Iran House
3741 W. Morse Ave.
Lincolnwood, IL 60712
(847) 673-0614-ph
(847) 673-0617-Fax

All payments are Tax Deductible

4. Info on the earthquake (c/o Andrew Alamzad)

As the nation of Iran and all Iranian communities around the world grieve at yesterday's Bam earthquake disaster, a lingering question is how this epic natural catastrophe happened. I thought to share with you some of the data that I came across in regard to this awful event. Hopefully, this information can put the dimensions of the disaster into perspective, although this can be of little consolation for those who have lost their loved ones and are suffering from this incident. May nature have mercy on them.

One sobering piece of information is that the seismicity of Iran and U.S. State of California are strikingly similar as far as tectonic plate configurations, age, depth and movements. Moreover, the population levels (Iran=67 mil, CA=58 mil) and distributions are comparable too, even though, Iran is larger in area. And yet for the entire last century from 1900 to 2000, there were only 1,600 earthquake related deaths reported in California. That number for the same period for Iran stood at the dreadful level of more than 126,000. The reasons, construction materials in buildings (brick and mud in Iran versus wood in CA), and above all, lack of enforcement of construction codes and standards, specially in the residential buildings in Iran.

Tectonic Summary-Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver, Colorado
Magnitude 6.5 SOUTHEASTERN IRAN
2003 December 26, 01:56:52 UTC/05:26:52 AM Local Time
at Epicenter
Depth 10 km (6 miles), Location 28.990°N, 58.288°E
Distances:
185 km (115 miles) SE of Kerman, Iran
260 km (160 miles) E of Sirjan, Iran
260 km (160 miles) WSW of Zahedan, Iran
975 km (610 miles) SE of Tehran, Iran

This earthquake occurred as the result of stresses generated by the motion of the Arabian plate northward against the Eurasian plate at a rate of approximately 3 cm/yr (about one inch per year). Deformation of the Earth's crust in response to the plate motion takes place in a broad zone that spans the entire width of Iran and extends into Turkmenistan. Earthquakes occur as the result of both reverse faulting and strike-slip faulting within the zone of deformation.

Preliminary analysis of the pattern of seismic-wave radiation from the December 26 earthquake is consistent with the earthquake having been caused by right-lateral strike-slip motion on a north-south oriented fault. The earthquake occurred in a region within which major north-south, right-lateral, strike-slip faults had been previously mapped, and the epicenter lies near the previously mapped, north-south oriented, Bam fault. However, field investigations will be necessary to determine if the earthquake occurred on the Bam fault or on another, possibly not yet mapped, fault. The December 26 earthquake is 100 km south of the destructive earthquakes of June 11, 1981 (magnitude 6.6, approximately 3,000 deaths) and July 28, 1981 (magnitude 7.3, approximately 1,500 deaths). These earthquakes were caused by a combination of reverse-motion and strike-slip motion on the north-south oriented Gowk fault.

5. Doctors Without Borders

Earthquake: MSF rushes emergency relief teams and materials to Iran

Yesterday, Friday December 26, an MSF team carried out a rapid evaluation in the affected region in Bam together with the Iranian Red Crescent. The team is on the spot with first aid material. Ten tons of additional supplies are leaving by plane today.

The needs in this town of 110,000 inhabitants are considerable: the city is almost completely destroyed, as are the two hospitals, and many bodies are being extracted from the ruins.

Paris/Brussels/Barcelona - To meet the enormous needs caused by the earthquake in Iran, Médecins Sans Frontières is sending teams to reinforce those already present in the field. A team of 4 people (medical and logistical) will arrive in Bam tomorrow where two doctors are already working. Teams are also departing from Brussels (three nephrologists, one medical coordinator, one logistician) and Madrid (one doctor, one logistician) and are expected to arrive in the region tomorrow.

Ten tons of additional supplies (medicines, emergency materials, water treatment and 5000 jerrycans) are leaving by plane today from the logistics base in Bordeaux. Medical stocks in Tehran (40m2 of medical and emergency supplies) and Baghdad (surgical material, 6000 hygiene kits and 19,000 blankets) are already on their way to the region of Bam. Another 26,000 blankets leave by airfreight tomorrow morning from Dubai.

Yesterday, an MSF team from Zahedan (300 km east of Bam) composed of 2 doctors, a nurse, an administrator and driver - expatriate and Iranian - carried out a rapid evaluation in the affected region together with the Iranian Red Crescent. The team is on the spot with first aid material.

The needs in this town of 110,000 inhabitants are considerable: the city is almost completely destroyed, as are the two hospitals, and many bodies are being extracted from the ruins. Two medical structures set up after the quake are overwhelmed and are without water, electricity, and lack medicines. At the airport of Bam, a field hospital has been set up for the evacuation of wounded to Kerman, Ispashan, Zahedan and Bandar Abbas.

The first MSF team in Bam has started supporting the two medical structures. The three nephrologists, who will focus on the treatment of "crush syndrome" (see note below), are expected to start working at the regional hospital of Kerman upon arrival. Other teams will travel to neighbouring villages to give aid to victims in the surrounding district of 250,000 inhabitants. The number of victims is presently impossible to evaluate, but could surpass 100,000. Shelter, blankets and potable water are indispensable for their survival in a region where temperatures can fall below freezing at night.

MSF has worked in Iran since 1995 in the regions of Mashaad and Zahedan with Afghan refugees. MSF also intervened during the earthquake which hit Iran in 1990.

What is Crush Syndrome?
Experience treating earthquake victims shows that kidney failure is a major cause of death among those who survive their initial injuries. In an affliction known as "crush syndrome," muscle tissue damaged after severe internal injury can release massive quantities of toxins into the bloodstream and lead to kidney failure. Left untreated, crush syndrome can be fatal.