Thousands of Iranians Die in Massive Quake : Disaster: Entire villages are destroyed. The search for victims trapped in rubble is slowed by bad weather and landslides. U.S. offers assistance.

More than 10,000 people died in the massive earthquake that rocked northern provinces early Thursday, severely damaging several cities and leveling scores of villages, Iran’s Cabinet announced in Tehran.

But some Iranian officials put the toll even higher, at 25,000 dead and tens of thousands injured. Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Kamal Kharrazi, said in New York that officials at the Foreign Ministry in Tehran gave him those numbers.

“We estimate the number will be increased” as more bodies are uncovered, he said.

The Cabinet, after an emergency session, issued a statement saying that a “sad, painful and horrible tragedy has so far claimed 10,000 lives and left thousands of others wounded,” according to a broadcast by the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) monitored here.

The agency said the Cabinet placed all government organizations “on full alert” and ordered that an air bridge be established between Tehran and the affected areas to take out survivors.

Rescue missions trying to reach the disaster area by road were being delayed by landslides, it reported. Bad weather was said to be hindering air operations.

The news agency added that some relief teams, including several hundred Revolutionary Guards, had reached the scene and were searching flattened homes for trapped victims while others cared for the injured.

Casualty figures were rising from hour to hour in the two hardest-hit provinces, Zanjan and Gilan, which are situated northwest of Tehran in a mountainous, agricultural area on the Caspian Sea. More than 2.7 million people live there.

“The big problem now is to reach some rural areas,” an official of Iran’s Red Crescent Society told Reuters, the British news agency, in Tehran. “We know some of the villages have been destroyed 90% or even 100%.”

With the physical obstacles and the understandable confusion in the region, it was impossible to vouch for the reliability of the death tolls announced by the Cabinet or reported by the unnamed officials at the Foreign Ministry.

The official news agency did keep broadcasting revised lists of villages, towns and cities worst-hit by the temblor but offered no explanation of how information was being collected to assemble the casualty numbers being reported.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman said Iran has contacted the U.N. Disaster Relief Office. The United States has already offered assistance, as have Britain, France, Switzerland, the European Community and Japan.

“We are saddened by the damage and the loss of life,” said White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, who reported that President Bush has sent a message of condolence to Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Since the United States and Iran have no diplomatic relations, it was delivered through the Swiss Embassy, which looks after U.S. interests in Iran.

At the Geophysics Center of Tehran University, the quake was measured at magnitude 7.3, but the U.S. Geological Survey at Golden, Colo., put the intensity at 7.7. It placed the quake’s center at a point in the Caspian about 15 miles off the Iranian coast. The Geophysics Center also recorded a series of aftershocks, including one almost 12 hours later of magnitude 6.5.

The main quake occurred just after midnight, sending residents in the capital, 125 miles from its center, scrambling into the streets.

Iran Television, also monitored here, showed grim scenes of relief workers removing broken bodies from the rubble of shattered buildings and placing them on stretchers. Heavy equipment was already on the scene in some areas, clearing away debris. Stunned women in black chadors stood outside crumpled homes and public buildings.

Mountains of rubble were shown in the village of Ab-Dar, and a narrator said these were all that was left of apartment buildings. They appeared to have been shaken off their foundations, collapsing like playing cards.

Primary roads were blocked by landslides, and a dam burst near Rasht, the Gilan provincial capital, where relief headquarters have been established. Much of the area was flooded around Rasht, which is situated on the Caspian Sea. At least 20 deaths were reported there, and dozens of rescue vehicles, including trucks carrying food supplies and ambulances, have been unable to get through.

Helicopter pilots taking part in rescue operations told IRNA that “no point between Rasht and Loushan 80 miles to the south has been spared by the disaster.”

Late reports said the most severe damage occurred in Zanjan, where at least 1,600 fatalities were recorded in more than 70 villages. About 1,000 of these were at Ab-Dar, where every house was destroyed, according to IRNA. In Qazvin, an industrial city and the largest in the province, the death toll was put at 768.

Seventy percent of the buildings in the towns of Manjil, Loushan, Roudbar, Bouin and Tarom-e Oleya were reported heavily damaged.

The national airline, Iran Air, flew relief supplies into the region and returned carrying casualties, using three U.S.-made C-130 cargo planes and a number of helicopters. Many of the injured were taken to hospitals in Tehran.

Thousands of tents and blankets were flown in, along with rice, tea, sugar, cheese and canned foods, IRNA said. The Red Crescent Society and hospitals appealed for blood, blankets and powdered milk.

Tass, the official Soviet news agency, reported that buildings swayed in Baku, the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan, 160 miles north of the center. Tass said there were no casualties but some minor damage.

President Rafsanjani declared three days of official mourning and ordered every agency of the state to be prepared to take part in the relief effort. Then he and the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Shiite Muslim spiritual leader, flew to the area to supervise relief operations.

Khamenei was quoted as saying that the earthquake was a “divine test.”

“The bereaved and other people,” he said, “should pass this test with pride through their patience, endeavor, cooperation and assistance.”

IRNA said many Iranians were awake when the temblor occurred, watching the telecast of a World Cup soccer match in Italy. Some windows were broken in Tehran, and many people ran into the streets, but no major damage was reported there.

The quake was Iran’s most severe since September of 1978, when one measuring 7.7 shook the eastern desert region and caused about 25,000 fatalities. Soviet Armenia was hit by a quake in December of 1988; it measured 6.9 and also caused about 25,000 deaths.

WORST EARTHQUAKES SINCE 1975 Date: Dec. 1988 Location: Soviet Armenia Magnitude: 6.9 Death toll: 25,000 Date: Sept. 1985 Location: Mexico Magnitude: 8.1 Death toll: 9,500 Date: Oct. 1983 Location: Turkey Magnitude: 7.1 Death toll: 1,300 Date: Dec. 1982 Location: Yemen Magnitude: 6.0 Death toll: 2,800 Date: Nov. 1980 Location: Italy Magnitude: 7.2 Death toll: 4,800 Date: Oct. 1980 Location: Algeria Magnitude: 7.3 Death toll: 4,500 Date: Sept. 1978 Location: Iran Magnitude: 7.7 Death toll: 25,000 Date: March 1977 Location: Romania Magnitude: 7.5 Death toll: 1,541 Date: Nov. 1976 Location: Eastern Turkey Magnitude: 7.9 Death toll: 4,000 Date: August 1976 Location: Philippines Magnitude: 7.8 Death toll: 8,000 Date: July 1976 Location: Tangshan, China Magnitude: 8.2 Death toll: 242,000 Date: Feb. 1976 Location: Guatemala Magnitude: 7.5 Death toll: 22,778 Date: Sept. 1975 Location: Turkey Magnitude: 6.8 Death toll: 2,312