A NORTH grandfather is among the charity workers searching for survivors of the devastating earthquake in Iran.

Ray Gray, 48, flew out to the city of Bam as part of a 15-strong team from the International Rescue Corps (IRC).

He had been opening Christmas presents with his five-year-old granddaughter, Courtney, at his home in Selby, North Yorkshire, on Boxing Day morning when the call came through for him to get ready to leave.

His wife, Veronica, has been liaising with the families of other IRC workers who are out in Iran, in her role as deputy regional co-ordinator for the charity.

She said: "The last update we had was that they were all working extremely hard and were carrying out search and rescue operations in Zone Five of the city."

Mr Gray has worked for the IRC for 13 years and has spent time in Rwanda, Mozambique, Turkey, Italy and Columbia.

He has been joined in Iran by Sheena McCabe, 35, from Thirsk, North Yorkshire, a lecturer from the Emergency Planning College, in Easingwold.

Members of the IRC are among about 400 foreign experts who have joined mercy efforts. There are also fire and rescue crews from Essex, Hampshire and Kent, and sniffer dogs from the Canis charity and British International Rescue Dogs.

The US, which branded Iran part of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, has sent two planes carrying food and aid, and about 200 rescue and medical experts.

This morning, British rescue teams are due to decide whether to return home, following another day during which no one was found alive.

Gillian Dacey, 32, said she and her colleagues from the Rapid-UK team had found only bodies since their arrival in the historic city of Bam early on Saturday.

An estimated 80 per cent of Bam was flattened in the earthquake, which registered 6.3 on the Richter scale.

Iran's interior minister said yesterday that more than 15,000 bodies had been buried since the disaster and the final toll would exceed 20,000.

At several rescue sites, workers wore masks as the stench of decaying corpses grew stronger.

Pick-up trucks were going round the city picking up the dead, but many corpses remained on the pavements.

Some relatives guarded their loved one's bodies and appealed to drivers to take them to the cemetery for burial.

Also in the city, police fired shots in the air to halt looters who were trying to break into a relief warehouse containing blankets and other aid.