Survivor is found 13 days after earthquake in Iran

A MAN has been found alive after spending 13 days under the rubble of the Iran earthquake.

The 56-year-old man was found by rescue workers last night trapped beneath a wardrobe which had apparently saved his life. He was said to be alive but in very poor health.

He is the first survivor to emerge from the ruins of the city of Bam since a women in her 90s was rescued on Saturday.

The ancient city, 625 miles south-east of Tehran, was destroyed by the quake on December 26. Mehdi Shadnoush, part of the Ukrainian-Iranian medical team, said the man was being treated at a field hospital.

"When he arrived at the hospital his signs of life were very weak," he said. "He was frozen and now he is in a coma."

The man was seen on a hospital bed covered by a blanket and with an oxygen mask on. The quake, which measured 6.8 on the Richter scale, struck just before dawn on Boxing Day, destroying 90 per cent of the city’s buildings and killing more than 30,000 people.

Experts say it is very rare for people to survive for more than 72 hours in such conditions.

Aid workers said the rescued man, whose first name is thought to be Jalil, had travelled from a nearby village to stay with his sister in Bam the night before the earthquake struck.

"We have sent people to his village to bring his wife to the hospital," an aid worker said.