BAM, Iran, 9 January 2004 — A 57-year-old man was pulled from the rubble of Iran’s earthquake, barely conscious but still alive because he had a source of water during the 13 days he was buried, a doctor and a hospital official said yesterday.

The man quickly slipped into unconsciousness, however, and his prognosis was uncertain.

“It’s a miracle,” said Dr. Mahdi Shadnoush, the chief physician at the Ukrainian field hospital where the man named Jalil was being treated after searchers rescued him Wednesday night. “He had no access to food but only water.”

An Associated Press reporter saw Jalil, bruised and covered with white cloth on a hospital bed. Jalil had tubes coming out of his mouth and nose but his chest could be seen rising and falling. It was unclear whether he was on a respirator.

Jalil was thin but did not appear emaciated. The hair on his head was gray, but his beard and mustache were mostly black.

Shadnoush was unsure about the source of Jalil’s water but he said the ruins of a home where Jalil was found were wet. Shadnoush said that the case was difficult to explain scientifically — but water apparently would have been the key. People rarely survive being buried under earthquake rubble for more than three days.

Jalil was conscious enough to speak out his name to rescuers who dug him out of the rubble, but he slipped into unconsciousness after just a few minutes, said Mohammad Reza Tahmasebi, who is in charge of the Ukrainian hospital. Doctors were unsure whether Jalil will survive.

“We hope to save his life,” Shadnoush said. “A medical team is looking after him. We are constantly checking his condition. We hope to keep him alive, but we cannot guarantee it.”

Jalil is from the town of Narmanshir, about 60 km (37 miles) outside Bam and had come here on Dec. 25 for medical treatment. Jalil spent the night at his sister’s house, where he was buried by the 6.6-magnitude earthquake that struck the next morning, flattening much of Bam and killing more than 30,000 people.

Authorities were trying to find Jalil’s relatives in Narmanshir so they could bring them to Bam.