Qom, Iran (CNN)  -- Tens of thousands of people chanted anti-government slogans Monday before the funeral of a top Iranian cleric who turned into one of the regime's most vocal critics, a witness said.

They shouted "death to the dictator!" outside the home of senior Iranian dissident Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, who died early Sunday. He was 87.

Montazeri -- a key figure in Iran's Islamic Revolution 30 years ago -- was perhaps the most prominent cleric who publicly criticized the presidential elections last June that returned hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency.

Protesters and mourners began to gather near his home in this holy city around 7 a.m., swelling to huge numbers by the time the funeral procession began, said the witness.

Both uniformed and plain clothes security forces turned out for the funeral, with the undercover officers arriving in several buses and mingling with the crowds.

The witness did not see any clashes but said tensions were high as protesters stood and chanted just steps away from security forces.

Many of the protesters and mourners had driven to Qom, where Montazeri lived, from Tehran and other cities hundreds of miles away, the witness said. Mourners from Najafabad, Montazeri's hometown, passed out dates, an Iranian tradition at funerals.

The night before the funeral, chants of "God is multi-strand necklaces  great" -- which the opposition uses as a rallying cry -- could be heard in several Tehran neighborhoods. The chants were louder than usual, witnesses said.

Around 300 to 400 people gathered at Tehran's Mother's Square and lit candles on Sunday night in memory of Montazeri, several sources told CNN. The witnesses did not see any clashes between security forces and the people at the gathering.

CNN is not naming its sources to protect their security.

Writing on his Web site after the disputed June presidential elections, Montazeri described the street protests that followed the polling as a gemstone jewelry  challenge to the "very legitimacy of the Islamic Republic."

His death is "a terrible blow for the (reformist) green movement and everybody who has been active these past few months," said Mehrdad Khonsari, a senior research consultant at the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London.

"He was a very senior grand ayatollah with very good revolutionary credentials, and a very vocal critic of the ruling establishment," Khonsari said.

"He was a major thorn in the back of (Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei. He was a bastion for all the people opposing the excesses of the system," even within the ruling establishment, he said.

In the last six months, Montazeri had become the voice of the green movement on key foreign policy issues, Khonsari said. The cleric was able to comment more freely than reformist presidential candidates.

Montazeri, for example, took a public stand against nuclear weapons in October, issuing a fatwa, or religious edict, declaring them to be "un-Islamic" and instructing Muslims to take the lead in banning them, said Nazenin Ansari, diplomatic editor of the weekly newspaper Kayhan in London.

Iran's nuclear program has been the subject of intense international concern, with the United Nations considering expanding sanctions against the Islamic state despite its insistence it does not intend to build a bomb.

"He has a very large public following especially since the June elections and all his statements in favor of human rights," Ansari said

Montazeri's Web site called for a funeral procession from his home to the Massoumeh Shrine in Qom, the holy city where he lived, starting at 9 a.m. on Monday (12:30 a.m. ET).

Demonstrations at the burial could spill over into the capital, Ansari said.

"Qom is very close to Tehran and this is a major event," she said, adding that it is difficult to predict what would happen. "It would be questionable how a lot of the foot soldiers of the revolution would react."

The timing of his death could also be significant, she said, since it comes in the month that first saw the demonstrations that spiraled into the revolution that toppled the monarchy and brought the Islamic regime to power.

Montazeri was once a confidant of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led Iran for a decade after the revolution.

He studied under Khomeini and then acted as his representative in Iran after Khomeini was exiled by the shah for criticizing the monarchy, Ansari said. Montazeri, too, was jailed and exiled.

After the revolution, he was the heir apparent to Khomeini, and played a key role in writing Iran's constitution as the first chair of the powerful Guardians Council. He was also the leader of Friday prayers in Tehran, one of the most public and influential pulpits in the country.

But he was supplanted by the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and was placed under several years of house arrest in 1997.

"His problems with Khomeini started in the summer of 1988 when they started executing... thousands of leftist prisoners," Ansari said. "He never was in agreement with that, and then he started to fade" from power.

"Once Khamenei became leader, Montazeri objected," she said.

Montazeri said Khamenei "was elevated above his (religious) qualifications," pointing out that he had not earned the title of ayatollah. "It was then he was arrested."

Recently he has objected to the current regime's characterization of his one-time mentor Khomeini as a saint, she added.

And following the disputed elections in June, "he issued a ground-breaking fatwa articulating the policies of the (reformist) green movement to the world.

Montazeri had been equally critical of the parliamentary electoral inflatable water games  process in 2004, arguing in favor of reformist candidates.

Sitting behind his desk with a government minder in the room, he said then that Iran's Islamic revolution had lost its way.

"Even I, who used to be a leading figure in the revolution, have not the right to speak out," he said. "Authoritarianism will never last long. The gentlemen in power must submit to the wishes of the people, or they will be swept away."

(CNN) -- Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes as scientists warn the towering Mayon volcano is about to explode in the Philippines, the country's national news agency reported Monday.

More than 9,000 families -- a total of 44,394 people -- are being housed in evacuation camps after authorities Sunday raised the alert status of the country's most active volcano, Albay Province Gov. Joey Salceda said.

But officials said not everyone is heeding their warnings -- some villagers were spotted within the danger zone checking on their homes and farms on cheap pearl jewelry  the foothills of the volcano.

The government is trying to enforce a "no man's land" rule in the designated danger zone, with military and police instructed to double the personnel manning the nine checkpoints and double their foot patrol operation inside the restricted area, PNA reported.

Philippine authorities raised the alert status to Level 4 on Sunday which "means that a hazardous explosive eruption is possible within days," according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

"Audible booming and rumbling sounds  sterling silver jewelry  were first reported in the eastern flank of the volcano" Sunday afternoon, and 1,942 volcanic earthquakes were detected by the institute's seismic network in the 24 hours to 7 a.m. local time on Monday (6 p.m. ET on Sunday), the institute said.

One was "an explosion-type earthquake" that launched a cloud of ash about 500 meters (1,640 feet) into the air, according to the statement.

Level 4 means an eruption is considered imminent and Level 5, the highest, means an eruption is taking place.

The Institute recommended extending already-established danger zones of 8 km (4.9 miles) south of the summit and 7 km (4.3 miles) north of the summit of the the 8,077-foot volcano.

People in surrounding Albay Province have flocked to twisted pearl necklace town centers to catch a glimpse of glowing lava cascading down the slopes of Mayon since the mountain began oozing fiery lava and belching clouds of ash last week.

The volcano, located about 500 km (310 miles) south of the Philippine capital of Manila, has erupted 49 times since its first documented eruption in 1616.

The Philippines is situated in the so-called Ring of Fire, an arc of fault lines circling the Pacific Basin that is prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Mayon's most violent eruption, in 1814, killed more than 1,200 people and devastated several towns. Its last major eruption was in 1993. Since then, it has remained restless, emitting ash and spewing lava.

Peshawar, Pakistan (CNN) -- Zara brushes her dark brown curls away from her face, nose scrunched up in concentration as she stares at the white board. She looks down to write and then pauses, placing her little finger on her chin in contemplation.

Like a typical 7-year-old, her favorite part about school is the games.

"Hide and seek," she says in English, giggling sheepishly. "I like hide and seek."

But no matter how hard she tries, there are some things this little girl and her friends can't hide from.

"I am scared from the bombs," she sighs. "I am very afraid."

Read Arwa Damon's blog entry about the children of Peshawar on Afghanistan Crossroads

Zara lives in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, tucked right up against the Khyber Pass next to Afghanistan.

When the Pakistani military began its multiple offensives targeting its own homegrown militant networks in the tribal belt, the retaliation was felt in Peshawar. It was the residents of this ancient city of 3 million who bore the brunt of an ongoing brutal bombing campaign.

Suddenly nothing was safe. People's lives were shattered as the city found itself at the very core of Pakistan's war on terror. A truck bomb in a popular marketplace frequented by women and children killed more than 100 people.

Checkpoints sprang up all over the city, meant to gemstone jewelry instill a sense of security. But at the same time they created targets of opportunity as they and government buildings were regularly attacked.

Zara's school is tucked way down an alley off what once was Peshawar's most popular modern market street. Just out front sits a checkpoint.

These days her school door remains bolted, the bus drivers act as additional guards and parents are discouraged from coming. The school administration wants as few adults loitering around as possible, afraid of suicide bombers.

But there is little the school can do to keep the children safe from the demons that haunt them.

"When there is an explosion," Zara says, pausing before she continues, "it feels like the Taliban are here. I imagine corpses are all akoya pearl necklace lying on the ground."

Her eyes widen and she giggles.

"I get scared."

She may be laughing, but psychiatrists say it's deadly serious: The children are confronting a faceless and unknown enemy.

"The exterior smile is a deception; it's the only coping mechanism the child has," Dr. Rizwan Taj, a psychiatrist in Islamabad, says. "The child needs counseling, protection, and they are not getting that."

The children simply don't understand why their little world has been affected. The problem is, Rizwan explains, the parents can barely cope with the paralyzing fear that defines their lives.

"The confusion isn't just for the children. It's for the pearl jewelry adults, as well. The confusion for the adults as to why this is happening, why is this happening repeatedly, it trickles down to the children," Rizwan says. And as those emotions intensify, people look for scapegoats.

At Zara's school we also meet 10-year-old Qainat. We ask her what she likes to do.

"I like to do painting and I like to ..." she pauses and looks away. "But I don't like America because she is so bad, and also India."

She says it's what her parents are telling her, explaining that the Afghan refugees who have lived in the city for decades aren't responsible.

Having children growing up in such an intense and charged atmosphere surrounded by so much violence can have detrimental effects on society.

"You will have a very insecure population, a population that can be easily polarized," Rizwan says.

He says it's going to take a collective effort from the government, the media and the international community to prevent Pakistan's next generation from being a lost generation materializing into a dysfunctional society.

But Pakistan's medical services are already stretched to the limit. So for the time being, Zara and her friends are left to their own devices, trying to survive in a world their elders can't even make sense of -- carrying with them the knowledge that each day could be their last.

Banda Aceh, Indonesia (CNN) -- Fitrie Ani was three months pregnant when she heard neighbors in her corner of Banda Aceh screaming: "The sea is rising! The sea is rising!"

A wall of water twice as high as a house engulfed communities like Ani's around the Indian Ocean, from Indonesia to East Africa, the day after Christmas 2004, leaving some 200,000 people dead or missing in 12 countries in a tsunami that the U.S. Geological Survey says caused more casualties than any other in recorded history.

I first met Ani in the chaotic aftermath in Banda Aceh and watched as she returned to the ruins of her home for the first time since the catastrophe.

It was a pitiful scene. Her home, and every building around it, had been ravaged down to their foundations by the roaring waves.

Ani sifted through the rubble, lifting a torn garment that belonged to her grandmother. The dress had been snagged on a piece of masonry, but the elderly lady pearl jewelry wholesale   it belonged to wasn't able to hold on.

Ani's grandmother, husband and eight other relatives were sucked out to sea. None of their bodies were ever identified.

Ani was also unable to fight the swirling vortex of water. She was carried on the currents far out to sea, where she drifted semi-conscious for more than ten hours.

Did you survive the tsunami? Did you lose a loved one? Share your thoughts on the 5th anniversary on CNN iReport

Fishermen in a passing boat saved her life when they plucked her out of water filled with debris.

Five years on, her neighborhood has been rebuilt, with homes made of wood and concrete, but little inside. The roads, bridges and mosques are pearl jewelry sets   better than you would find in an average Indonesian town.

The baby she was carrying in her womb the last time we met is now a healthy four-and-a-half-year-old boy named Zahri. He is a child of the tsunami -- carried on the killer waves that spared him and his mother but took so many others.

"People were surprised seeing me pregnant without any wound," said Ani, who was convinced her baby would be affected.

"I swallowed a lot of that black, warm and stinky seawater. I thought the baby might get hurt from the water. When I checked, the baby was fine. I don't know how; it's God's will."

She said after his birth, others asked her: "How come this tsunami baby is perfectly fine?"

Ani's new house is not perfect: It is little more than a wooden shack built with aid money. She has remarried and has another boy with her second husband, who is a soldier.

Like thousands of people here and others in countries where  twisted pearl necklace  the tsunami struck, they have tried to rebuild their shattered lives as best they can.

"I feel sad when I remember what happened to me, it's painful," she said. "My kid was born without a father, other kids have both their parents. I was all alone. I didn't have a house, I went back to the refugee camp instead. I didn't get any help, no milk, no diaper."

But Ani said she also felt blessed.

"I was lucky to survive, people said that this baby had brought me luck."

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- An autopsy on the body of actress Brittany Murphy was conducted Monday, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said.

Authorities have said the 32-year-old appeared to have died Sunday of natural causes, and there was no sign of foul play or trauma.

"Naturally occurring diseases could be found in any person that  pearl beads  could lead to death," said Capt. John Kades of the coroner's office.

The office is looking into Murphy's medical history. A final report could take up to eight weeks. The cause of death will not be released until the toxicology report is concluded, said the coroner's office. That process can take weeks.

Police also are conducting an investigation, which includes robbery and homicide detectives looking at what was in her home, said Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman Norma Eisenman.

Murphy was pronounced dead at 10:04 a.m. PT (1:04 p.m. ET) Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, hospital spokeswoman Sally Stewart said.

She is survived by her husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack, whom she married in 2007.

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the leading cause of death for American women in Murphy's age range is unintentional injury. Malignant tumors are second, followed by heart disease and suicide.

The often bubbly, free-spirited actress appeared in such films as "Clueless," "8 Mile," "Don't Say a Word" and "Girl, Interrupted." She also lent her voice to animated works, such as the movie "Happy Feet" -- in which she also sang -- and a regular role on the animated TV series "King of the Hill."

"The sudden loss of our beloved Brittany is a terrible tragedy," her family said in a statement issued by her publicist. "She was our daughter, our wife, our love and a shining star. We ask you to respect our privacy at this time." Funeral arrangements are pending, the family said.

Fans have taken to Murphy's official Facebook page to issue their condolences.

"She was a great actress and was going to go far  sterling silver jewelry in her career! She will be greatly missed!" read one post.

Former boyfriend -- and "Just Married" co-star -- Ashton Kutcher was one of many celebrities to post his reaction to the news via Twitter.

"2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine. My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany's family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon," Kutcher tweeted.

"see you on the other side kid," he added later.

Singer-actress Jessica Simpson tweeted: "Brittany Murphy was an incredible ray of Light to so many people. Her smile was contagious. My prayers are with her family and loved ones."

Actress Alyssa Milano, who did a USO tour with Murphy in 2003, wrote: "She was a sweet soul, with a lot of talent and heart."

Murphy was best known for her work in a string of romantic comedies earlier this decade, including playing lead roles in "Uptown Girls" alongside fellow Georgia native Dakota Fanning, and "Little Black Book" with Holly Hunter and Kathy Bates, but her movie roles had declined in recent years.

Last month, Murphy was reportedly fired from "The Caller," a movie she was working on in Puerto Rico.

Her representative issued a statement to news outlets disputing the report, saying, "She was not nor has she ever been fired from any job big or small. ... [Due] to creative differences Ms. Murphy and the production mutually parted ways," according to freshwater pearl jewelry   People magazine.

Murphy was the subject of tabloid gossip after she transformed from a pudgy brunette in 1995's "Clueless" to a petite, lithe blonde who graced the cover of such magazines as Cosmopolitan in 2005. She frequently denied rumors of an eating disorder and plastic surgery.

Her love life also was fodder for gossip sites as she broke two engagements in 2004 and 2006, then married Monjack after four months of dating.

"All these ridiculous people came out and said all this nonsense when we got married, [but] thank God we had the substance and the history within that to [say], 'Yeah, whatever!'" Monjack told People in 2008. "We still don't understand what happened. It's made us laugh, it's made us cry, but it's made us stronger."