“Before the bodies are wrapped and bound, however, the blankets are opened twice: first so that a cleric can rub a bit of dirt on the face and hands of the dead. In extreme circumstances, the ritual is considered an acceptable substitute for washing the body.

Then a man with a video camera bends over the face, panning down to a number written on a scrap of newsprint folded into the funeral shroud. The footage will be made available to families looking for loved ones, along with a record of where they were buried.”

In the Post, a description of people trying to impart spiritual significance to the mass-grave burial of tens of thousands. It’s pretty affecting.

Apparently they’re getting plenty of aid in Bam, which is good–even American planes landed there, and were welcomed, for the first time in ten years (edit: twenty-two). But it doesn’t seem likely that any amount of aid is going to make much of a difference now.

In Iran, a mother held her baby girl to shield her from falling rubble, and it worked–rescuers found the mother dead, but six-month-old Nassil lived.

I wonder if I’d have had the presence of mind to do that myself.