Two more bodies pulled from Iraq shrine after landslide —rescuers

KARBALA, Iraq — The bodies of two pilgrims were pulled from an Iraqi shrine on Monday, two days after a landslide caused it to partially collapse, taking the overall toll to seven dead, rescuers said.

"Unfortunately, we found this morning two bodies, a man and a woman," under the rubble of Qattarat al-Imam Ali, Jawdat Abdelrahman, director of the civil defencse media department, told AFP.

So far, the bodies retrieved from the site were a child, four women and two men, while three children had been rescued and rushed to hospital.

"We are continuing the search for other victims," Abdelrahman said, adding eyewitnesses had reported that there was another body, of a woman, still under the rubble.

Civil defense spokesman Nawas Sabah Shaker had said on Sunday that between six and eight pilgrims had been reported trapped under the debris of the shrine, near the Shiite holy city of Karbala.

The three children rescued earlier were in "good condition" and being monitored in a hospital, emergency services had said on Sunday.

Search and rescue operations have been carried out since the shrine, which sits at the base of high, bare rock walls, became partially buried when earthen embankments collapsed on Saturday due to saturation from humidity, according to the civil defense.

Political paralysis

It is the latest tragedy to befall oil-rich but poverty-stricken Iraq, which is trying to move past decades of war but is hobbled by political paralysis, endemic corruption and other challenges.

Rescuers on Sunday drove a bulldozer through the shrine's entrance, which resembles half a dome ornately decorated with blue tiles covered in Arabic script.

The rescue teams said they had worked to provide supplies of oxygen, food and water to those trapped under the rubble before the bodies were found, according to the state news agency INA.

Iraqi President Barham Saleh on Sunday called on rescue workers to "mobilize all efforts to save the trapped people", while Caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi urged his interior minister to directly supervise operations.

The stricken shrine is dedicated to Imam Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, who according to Shiite tradition stopped there with his army on his way to a battle in AD 657.

It is located in a natural depression about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Karbala, which is the burial place of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.

Shiites view Hussein, who died in battle in AD 680, as the rightful successor to the Prophet Mohammed, the issue at the heart of a schism with Sunni Islam. — Agence France-Presse