Iranian President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani (right) visits the earthquake-stricken village of Birjand in Eastern Iran on Monday.

MASHHAD, IRAN, May 14: Iran said rescue teams ended their operations in 200 eastern villages devastated by a strong earthquake as international aid continued to trickle in for 50,000 survivors left without shelter.

Rasul Zargar, Iran's top official in charge of natural disasters relief, said yesterday rescue operations had ended and officials were assessing the damage caused by Saturday's quake which measured 7.1 on the Richter Scale, state-run Tehran radio said.

It said a plane carrying 22 tonnes of emergency equipment and food from Azerbaijan landed in Mashhad last night, the seventh plane load of international aid received during the day.

Iran revised downward casualty figures, saying the latest figures were 1,560 dead and 2,810 injured. An official said earlier reports of 2,400 dead and 6,000 injured were inaccurate. A United Nations report released in Tehran said the quake had caused heavy damage to irrigation facilities in the area known as Iran's saffron capital which also raises cattle and produces wheat.In the remote villages, trucks rushed food, water, clothes and tents to bereaved residents who struggled to collect valuables from collapsed houses.Hossein, a 21-year-old student of English in the provincial capital Mashhad, stood with his brother on top of the family's collapsed house in the small saffron-growing village of Abiz.

They were pulling out a large Persian carpet, their family's main possession, from the ruins of their home, now surrounded by khaki tents set up to house the homeless. Their parents survived, but 25 members of their wider family died.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.