Using bulldozers, spades and even hands, rescuers struggled to pull bricks and debris from collapsed homes Tuesday as hope faded for finding more survivors of a devastating earthquake.

Rasul Zargar, Iran's top official for disaster relief, dismissed earlier death toll reports, saying Tuesday that 1,560 people were killed in Saturday's earthquake. He said he based that figure on surveys of Iranian aid workers who have reached damaged villages.In Ardakul, where almost one-third of the village's 1,600 residents were killed, a 12-year-old girl picked through the rubble.

"We have lost everything," said Fatima Yari.

But her family was lucky.

Her 3-year-old sister Mehri survived the earthquake when blankets and mattresses fell on top of her as the roof of their home collapsed.

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The quake smashed the mud houses scattered through this farming region 450 miles east of Tehran, and near-freezing temperatures at night have threatened survivors. Some 100,000 people were left homeless.

Plane loads of tents, blankets and food arrived from neighboring countries, including the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The United States, long a vociferous critic of the Iranian government, pledged $100,000 Monday to the Red Cross for the earthquake victims.

In Ardakul, a prosperous village of concrete and steel homes, villagers and rescue teams searched for survivors or the remains of their neighbors.

Shattered television sets, twisted ovens and a blue jeep buried up to its fender were visible, signs of the town's former prosperity.

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