Iran mourns earthquake victims

A search team carries the body of a quake victim in Changoleh

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran is mourning hundreds of people who have died after a powerful earthquake struck the northwest of the country.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has declared three days of mourning as efforts to rescue those trapped beneath rubble are stepped up on Sunday.

More than 220 people have been killed and at least 1,000 injured by the quake, Iran's Interior Ministry has said, a downward revision of earlier reports that more than 500 had died.

Most of the deaths were in the town of Boinzhara in Qazvin province, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency has reported, after the quake, which measured 6.0 on the Richter scale, struck the region the day before.

IRNA said some 60 villages around Avaj were razed to the ground or lost at least half of their buildings.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO CNN's Lisa Mirando has more on a powerful earthquake that hit Northwestern Iran and has caused hundreds of deaths (June 22) Play video   EXTRA INFORMATION Images from the Iran earthquake  • Flash animation: Major earthquakes of 20th century  • Timeline: Major earthquakes in last 20 years     MAGNITUDE GUIDE Below is an interactive guide to earthquake magnitude and severity: Magnitude: Less than 3.5 3.5 - 5.4 Under 6.0 6.1 - 6.9 7.0 - 7.9 8 or greater

Rescue workers and soldiers are searching for survivors and retrieving bodies among a swathe of around 100 ruined villages.

Wailing survivors beating their heads and faces while mourning their loved ones have been broadcast on state television.

Among the worst hit places was the tiny village of Abdareh, around 220 kilometres (140 miles) west of the capital, Tehran. Eight-year-old Qulam Alavi could not stop crying as he stood in front of the home in the village where both his parents died.

"When my father's body was removed from under the debris, his eyes were still open," he told The Associated Press.

The quake toppled Abdareh's mosque, demolished 40 homes and left at least 20 people dead. The only thing left undamaged is a hilltop cemetery.

Abbas Mohammedi, who had driven from Tehran on Saturday to visit his family, told AP: "I came all the way to say hello to them all, and now I am here to bury them." All nine of his relatives in Abdareh died in the quake.

Iranian military forces have airdropped blankets, food, and medicine to people in the region and are helping residents set up shelters.

Don Blakeman, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado, U.S. said the quake took place at 7:28 a.m. local time. Most people were still in their mud-brick homes at the time.

Blakeman said the epicentre of the quake was between the cities of Hamadan and Qazvin, among mountainous terrain containing many villages.

Major aftershocks were reported for hours following the main quake.

Boinzhara governor Ali Mousavi said the quake devastated the villages' water and power infrastructure, IRNA reported.

A villager grieves for his dead wife in Abdareh

Buildings in the region are made of mud and are very susceptible to this type of natural catastrophe.

"Usually with this kind of building we lose a lot of people," Professor Fariborz Nateghi, a government advisor on earthquake engineering, told the Reuters news agency. "You lose the walls and the ceiling collapses. They are major killers."

President Bush, in a written statement Saturday, said he was "saddened" to learn about the "tragic event" and sent his condolences to the families of the victims.

"Human suffering knows no political boundaries," Bush said, extending a hand to a country he has labeled part of an "axis of evil."

"We stand ready to assist the people of Iran as needed and as desired," the president said.

Iran lies on a major seismic line and is prone to quakes. Moderate tremors are reported in various parts of the country almost daily.

Earthquakes in northern Iran -- where the Arabian tectonic plate collides with the Eurasian plate -- tend to be especially strong.

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake centred near the Caspian Sea destroyed three cities and more than 700 villages in June 1990, killing 40,000 people.

Another quake of about the same magnitude in the same area nearly 30 years earlier killed 12,000 people.

President Mohammad Khatami has issued a message of condolence to the Iranian nation and instructed the Interior Ministry to cooperate with other agencies to act quickly in offering assistance to the victims, AP reports.