The Town That Disappeared

"I was driving home for dinner. Suddenly I thought I had four flat tires. Within seconds, all the houses on both sides of the street collapsed. Then the town disappeared into darkness."

It took only a few seconds more for Hassan Bandegi, 52, head of the town council in the pleasant northeastern Iran community of Tabas, to comprehend what was happening. In a country that has recorded 20,000 earthquakes and aftershocks in the past 18 years and suffered an estimated 100,000 casualties as a result, another temblor of major proportion had struck. In its aftermath last week, even seasoned rescue workers were appalled by what they found as they dug through the ruins of Tabas. Of the town's 17,000 people, as many as 15,000 had perished in 90 horrifying seconds. Of 100 smaller villages scattered in a radius of about 60 miles, at least 40 had been leveled and an additional 10,000 lives lost. It was the world's worst earthquake of 1978. The toll of death and destruction was Iran's most calamitous since 1968, when an earthquake centered at Kakhk, 110 miles northeast of Tabas on the same geological belt, killed 12,000 people.

Tabas, an ancient oasis located between Iran's vast salt desert of Dasht-i-Kavir and the more forbidding Dasht-i-Lut (Naked Desert) to the south, never had a chance. When the tremors began, most residents were at home, eating or enjoying the cool desert breeze that had begun to blow after torrid daytime temperatures. Once the shaking subsided, only six buildings in the town were still recognizable. Even the few newer buildings of steel-beam construction had collapsed.

The earthquake triggered a rescue operation by Iran's armed forces. It came at a time when political demonstrations against Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi had brought on martial law in twelve major cities and bruising confrontations between military units and Iranian Muslims. But twelve hours after the disaster struck, as flights of C-130 aircraft set up a relief shuttle from Tehran, there was no enmity between soldiers and dissidents. Landing on a hastily bulldozed gravel strip that was almost obliterated by blowing dust, the C-130s unloaded medical teams, rescue units, field hospitals, food, medicine, blankets and water. By week's end almost 800 civilians who required major surgery had been airlifted to Tehran and other cities, while from Tabas, air force helicopters fanned out to assist survivors in surrounding villages.

Within three days of the quake, the Empress and the Shah visited Tabas to assess the destruction. Survivors thronged around their monarch to kiss his hand and assuage their grief by telling him about their suffering. One man who had lost his wife and six children had to be restrained by the Shah and bystanders, from tearing at his hair in the traditional demonstration of mourning. Councilman Bandegi estimated his loss in terms of his clan, the traditional Iranian family grouping. The clan, he said sadly, had lost 341 people, or 83%. Casualties ranged through all levels of Tabas' population. The governor of the town, Ali Mirinejad, 40, lost his wife, children and sister as their home collapsed around them. Mirinejad worked without sleep for the next four days coordinating relief operations; in a brief ceremony in the midst of the debris, the Shah decorated him with a medal for "bravery and tolerance." Said Iran's monarch: "This is the least we could do for you."

Listening to the tales of horror, the Shah could do little more than promise assistance. "We will rebuild your town," he told the survivors who pressed around him, "even if it will not be as beautiful and charming as the historic Tabas." Meanwhile, rescue workers faced up to the grim, ultimate task in such disasters: bulldozing the ruins to prevent epidemic--even though there might still be survivors too deep to find, too weak to call out. Well diggers known as moqanis were flown in from Kerman and Yazd to repair the ancient qanats, the giant underground system of wells and canals around the Kavir desert that for centuries have brought water to Tabas and greened its pools, palms and citrus trees. After slithering 180 ft. down into the canals to repair connections, they reported nervously that "the earth is growling down there." Tabas' terrible night, it seemed, might not be over.

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