Iraq keeps up search after four bodies pulled out from shrine

Karbala, Iraq: Iraqi rescue workers on Sunday were desperately searching for survivors trapped under rubble after a landslide hit a shrine, killing at least four people.

"We have found four bodies, including of a woman" at the site near Karbala, central Iraq, civil defence official Abdelrahman Jawdat told AFP. Between six and eight pilgrims had been reported trapped under the debris of the shrine, known as Qattarat al-Imam Ali, civil defence spokesman Nawas Sabah Shaker had said earlier.

Three children have been rescued following Saturday’s disaster, emergency services said, adding that they were in "good condition" and being monitored in a hospital. Rescue teams working through the night were able to provide supplies of oxygen, as well as food and water to some of those trapped through gaps in the rubble, state news agency INA said.

Iraqi President Barham Saleh on Twitter called on the "heroic" rescue workers to "mobilise all efforts to save the trapped people". The emergency responders said earlier they were maintaining verbal contact with the victims "to reassure them". "We are working hard, with the utmost precision, to reach" those trapped, said Jawdat, director of the civil defence media department.