Some foreign doctors and research workers who asked not be identified said several hours after being arrived, they could find no place to erect a much needed field hospital or find proper people with whom to get helping the needy ones.

A European expert in Bam told some journalists that hope to find survivals under ruins fades after more than 60 hours. "And the possibility of rain to come in the next hours would make the task almost impossible", he added, as the national meteorology announced rains for the coming hours.

Ari Vakkilainnen, leading a Finnish rescue team, said on Sunday only 30 people had been dug out alive overnight and he did not think many more survivors would be found.

"In these conditions, we are not optimistic of finding anyone alive. Hopes are dwindling fast", the American news agency Associated Press quoted Barry Sessions of Britain's Rapid-UK rescue group, which did not find any survivors in 24 hours of searching.

"The earthquake reduced most of the buildings to something like talcum powder. Many of the casualties suffocated and there are few voids or gaps left in the buildings where we would normally find survivors", he added, as Planes from dozens of countries landed in the provincial capital of Kerman with relief supplies, volunteers and dogs trained to find bodies and survivors in the debris.

"International rescue teams who lands in Kerman, the Capital city of the Province of the same name have to make another five hours to reach Bam on a jammed road and once there, very difficult to find someone to talk to. There is an acute lack of coordination from the authorities", one journalist told Iran Press Service.

"There is no organization. Whoever is stronger takes the aid", resident Mehdi Dehghani told reporters.

Roland Schlachter, leading a team from the Swiss Corps for Humanitarian Aid, said tents, heating stoves and blankets were urgently needed, as was coordination of the relief effort.

President Mohammad Khatami, who is due to visit the region on Monday, said the scope of the earth shake was so vast that Iran could not cope on its own. "Everyone is doing their best to help, but the disaster is so huge that I believe no matter how much is done we cannot meet the people's expectations."

"I believe the toll will reach 30,000", said a government official in Kerman, adding, "Some outlying villages are even more badly damaged than Bam, they are 100 percent destroyed, but it is very difficult to reach them", he explained.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said the death toll had reached 22,000, but was likely to rise. The ministry said 20,500 bodies had been recovered and buried by Sunday afternoon.

Officials said 30,000 people were injured and aid workers estimate more than 100,000 people may have been left homeless.

More than 20,000 bodies have been retrieved since Friday, a local government spokesman said, expressing fear to see the death toll grew to 30,000 people, as survivors were spending a third night in the open in temperatures of 7 degrees Celsius, burning cardboard and any other material they could find to fend off the cold.