On Dec. 26, an earthquake that measured between 6.3 and 6.7 on the Richter scale hit Bam, Iran. As the death toll rose to more than 40,000, Iranian refugee and Willow Glen Bahá'í Center member Farhad Khorasani lost family members in the tragedy.

Khorasani's hometown of Kerman, Iran, only 125 miles away from the epicenter, felt the rumbling that ripped through the city.

He found out about the earthquake—pronounced zel-zel-eh in Farsi—from a friend in San Jose.

"I immediately got choked up," the Willow Glen resident said in Farsi, translated by Bahá'í Center member Armaghan Asadi. "I bought a phone card and called my sister in Kerman."

It took eight calls before he received any concrete information about the location of his relatives. His father's side of the family resides in Bam, and he eventually discovered that 14 of his uncles and cousins died. Fortunately his father, who lives in Bam, was visiting family in Kerman at the time of the quake and was not injured.

"I still have eight family members in the hospital, and many friends also died from the earthquake," he said. "The hardest part is being so far away from everyone."

Khorasani said Bam, which is located in southeastern Iran, is an ancient city that is rich agriculturally, with citrus fruits and dates.

"Because of the agricultural advantage, the population is concentrated in the downtown area, where the majority of the people used to live," he said. "Eighty percent of the city is destroyed."

But the buildings and homes are poorly constructed—virtually all made from mud and brick, he said. All the construction in Bam was destroyed. Khorasani, 40, said that many of the buildings were constructed by ordinary people with no training, which is one of the reasons the structures crumbled so quickly. It is not government practice to help Bam citizens architecturally or financially, leaving all the homes to be constructed by the homeowners themselves.

He adds, "The government never did anything proactively but knew this was an earthquake zone and knew it could be a problem."

He said the earthquake, and the toll it took on his family and friends, is on his mind every day. And the only way to combat the distance and time-difference issue is for Khorasani to continually purchase prepaid phone cards at a Persian store near his home in Willow Glen so he can stay connected to his family and relatives thousands of miles away.

As for the future, his family is acclimating to Willow Glen more and more each day, and he said his daughters, 10 and 6 years old, have adapted well to their new school. His dreams for their futures are boundless, and he is happy to live in a community that has other Bahá'í members.

He adds, "We came to the United States with a negative feeling. We were told it was not a good place to live. But we are very satisfied and really appreciative of all the help we've received. We're settling down and moving on."

According to San Jose resident Armaghan Asadi, who fled Iran at 16 years old, more than 200 people who follow the Bahá'í faith in Iran have been executed since the late 1970s for not switching from Bahá'í to Islam.

Khorasani, his wife and two daughters left Iran about two years ago and moved to Turkey, as refugees. A Catholic charity in Turkey decided to sponsor the family as refugees and sent them to San Jose, a place that the family wasn't initially excited to live in, but that proved to offer them a better life.

After seven months in Willow Glen, Khorasani said he is grateful for the new opportunities available to himself and his daughters.