IRAN - Feb 14 - Mosque Blaze Kills 35, Injures 200.

A faulty electrical heater starts a blaze in a Tehran mosque crowded with worshippers for a major Shiite Muslim festival, killing 35 people and injuring 200. Aid workers and emergency services swarmed around the mosque, a Reuters witness said. The inside of the mosque was blackened and littered with burned shoes and clothes. Many people flocked to the mosque searching for loved ones. Terrified worshippers trampled others trying to escape, some smashing windows in their desperation to escape the flames. "I saw some women throw themselves out of a second floor window, some died like that, others from smoke inhalation", said one of the guards at the mosque. ISNA reported the blaze started in the section set aside for women. Television said twenty of the dead were women. "My mother and two sisters were inside and I do not know what happened to them", said a girl called Manizheh, sobbing. State TV put out an appeal for people to give blood. Shiite Muslims are pouring into mosques to commemorate the death of the seventh century Shiite martyr Hossein, who was killed on the battlefield of Kerbala in Iraq. Tents are common props in plays commemorating Hossein's last days. Mosques are also draped with many hangings. Intelligence ministry officials were seen taking away pieces of the heater to determine the cause of the blaze.