Rescue workers digging through the rubble in the Iranian city struck by a massive earthquake say hope is fading of finding many more survivors.
About 400 foreign experts have joined rescue efforts in Bam, where more than 15,000 are now thought to have died.
Thousands of survivors spent a second night sleeping in the open or in their cars, fearful of aftershocks.
Iran has appealed for medicine and equipment to help the tens of thousands hurt in the south-eastern city.
Work has resumed on the grisly task of digging through the ruins of some of the many collapsed buildings, but the United Nations said the search for survivors would end on Sunday.
I lost my wife in this earthquake... I am very sad but I think Bam's people need international help
Asghar Ghasemi, Tehran
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The BBC's Jim Muir, in Bam, says most of the destroyed structures were made of mudbrick or ordinary bricks which collapsed leaving no protected spaces where people might survive.
John Holland, of rescue team Rapid UK, described the scene from the air: "We're probably looking at about 80% of the buildings totally flattened.
"Time is against you, the weather is against you, the type of buildings are against you. Obviously there is a small window of opportunity."
Iranian Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari told reporters the final death toll from the earthquake would definitely exceed 20,000 people.
Up to 15,000 bodies had already been "recovered and buried", he said.
US pledge
Work has barely begun on the ruins of Bam's historic citadel, a 2,000-year-old architectural marvel with a big medieval city clustered around it.
Whole buildings simply crumbled to the ground
The whole enormous site has been reduced to a sea of dust and rubble and no-one knows how many people may lie buried here.
A long list of nations have sent or pledged aid to Iran - including the United States, which branded Iran part of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea.
Two US planes carrying food and other aid landed in Kerman, the provincial capital, early on Sunday - the first US aircraft to land in Iran for a decade.
Huge task
The authorities' main priority is to provide food, water and shelter to those made homeless.
But the scale of this disaster is such that a monumental challenge of rehabilitation and reconstruction lies ahead, our correspondent says.
Bam and the surrounding area is home to more than 200,000 people.
The earthquake quake had a magnitude of at least 6.3, according to Iranian sources, while the US Geological Survey measured it at 6.7. |