SARBAGH, Iran (AP) – Rescue teams using dogs and heavy machinery pulled more bodies from the ruins of flattened villages in central Iran on Wednesday, raising the death toll from a powerful earthquake to at least 500. The number of dead was expected to climb even higher.

Teams were hampered by bad weather and the mountainous terrain, working in a cold, heavy rain after a night in which temperatures dropped below freezing.

Mohammad Javad Fadaei, deputy governor of Kerman province, said more bodies had been discovered. “The death toll is now 500, and there’s a possibility that the figure will increase,” he told The Associated Press.

Tuesday’s magnitude-6.4 quake affected an estimated 30,000 people in several small villages and many survivors were left homeless, living in tents and surviving on food rations.

Search efforts were concentrated in the remote villages of Hotkan, Sarbagh and Dahoueieh, which rescue workers had the most difficulty reaching. Rescue efforts were finished in other villages.

Zehra Mirzaei, 18, looked around her after being pulled Wednesday out from under the rubble in Hotkan.

“This is not my village, this is not Hotkan – I wish I had died with the others,” she said, beating her head and chest in grief.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his condolences Tuesday to the families of the victims and urged rescue workers to speed up their efforts.

“I extend my deep grief and sorrow over the deaths of several hundred fellow countrymen and injury of a large number of citizens,” Khamenei said in a statement carried by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

President Mohammad Khatami also offered the nation his condolences and called upon officials to provide the Cabinet with reports on relief operations.

The Iranian Army said a crisis center has been established to assist with relief and that a number of aircraft had been used to haul aid from Tehran to Kerman airport.

The Japanese government announced Wednesday in Tokyo that Japan would send blankets, tents and other aid worth $191,400 to aid quake victims.

“It has been raining and gotten cold there and many houses collapsed. The victims have been forced to live insufficiently,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said, hinting Japan may provide additional support. “We would like to monitor the situation and talk further with the Iranian government.”

Some 40 villages were damaged in the quake, which struck a region 150 miles from Bam, site of a devastating earthquake in December 2003 that killed 26,000 people and leveled the historic city.

The quake was centered on the outskirts of Zarand, a town of about 15,000 people in Kerman province about 600 miles southeast of the capital Tehran, Iran’s geological authority said.

Though comparable in strength to the 6.6-magnitude Bam quake, Tuesday’s quake hit a more sparsely populated area and was centered far deeper – some 25 miles compared to six miles for Bam – limiting the damage.

Still, the tiny villages that dot the central mountains – most of them made in fragile mud brick – were hard hit. In Dahoueieh, every building except a mosque with a golden dome had collapsed. At least 80 percent of the buildings in Sarbagh were leveled.

Iranian officials said that the death toll stood at 420, with some 900 injured.

“I lost everything. All my life is gone,” sobbed Asghar Owldi, 60, his face bandaged. His wife and two children were killed.

Iranian relief officials said they were benefiting from their experience in the Bam quake, which prompted one of the biggest international relief efforts ever.

“The earthquake in 2003 gave us a very good experience of how to deal with such a natural disaster. Despite the rain, relief operations are going smoothly. Relief teams have reached the villages and are helping the survivors,” said Mostafa Soltani, a spokesman for the Kerman government.

Iran is located on seismic fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. It experiences at least one slight earthquake everyday on average.