Earthquake in Iran, Death Toll Rises
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning to Iran, officials have raised the death toll again from the devastating earthquake that demolished much of a city. Reporter Kasra Naji is in that city called Bam, hundreds of miles southeast of Tehran.</s>KASRA NAJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, that's right. Iranian officials have been saying now that 28,000 people have been killed in this devastating earthquake, but that's not the only figure we're getting. We had President Khatami a couple of hours ago, who was holding a press conference, that he expects the final toll to be as high as 40,000. But we haven't seen any indication of how this jump has happened. Maybe they are expecting a lot more from under the rubble that we here expect. But nevertheless, there's so much destruction here that he may well be right, and that the final toll may be much more than 28,000 than we have confirmation of -- Carol.</s>LIN: And Khatami also talked about the American help that arrived -- the first time that military flights have actually landed in that country in 20 years.</s>NAJI: That's right. A military plane yesterday and a group of aid workers, basically government officials because they belong to various U.S. government departments, are arriving here today, both receiving a very warm welcome from Iranian officials here, basically to do an assessment of the medical needs here and do whatever they can in terms of medical help. Yes, they've been here. They are here now, and this has led to speculations that, since the warm welcome has been given to these people, there will be a departure in the relations within the U.S. and Iran, there will be an improvement. But President Khatami has just a couple of hours ago poured cold water over optimism, any optimism about improving of relations. He says there won't be any improvement until the administration of George W. Bush changes his policies and his attitudes towards Iran -- Carol.</s>LIN: Some political aftershocks from that earthquake. Thank you very much, Kasra Naji, reporting live from Bam. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.