Strong earthquake slams Turkey, death toll rising

Rescue workers helping survivors of Turkey quake

Strong earthquake slams Turkey, death toll rising

A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing at least 75 people and pulled down phone and power lines, officials and witnesses said.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has traveled to Van and the cabinet is expected to discuss the quake at a meeting called for Monday morning.

News Agencies report collapsed buildings, meshed into piles of twisted steel and chunks of concrete.

Desperate survivors dug into the rubble with their bare hands, trying to rescue the trapped and injured.

State-run TRT television reported that 45 people were killed and 150 injured in the eastern town of Ercis.

15 others died in the provincial center of Van. Turkish scientists estimate that up to 1,000 people could already be dead, due to low housing standards in the area and the size of the quake. Turkish media said phone lines and electricity had been cut off.

Ercis, a city of 75,000 in the mountainous province of Van, close to the Iranian border, was the hardest hit. It lies on the Ercis Fault in one of Turkey's most earthquake-prone zones. Van, 55 miles (90 kilometers) to the south, also suffered substantial damage.

Emergency workers battled to rescue people trapped in buildings in the city of Van and surrounding districts on the banks of Lake Van, near Turkey 's border with Iran .

"We heard cries and groaning from underneath the debris, we are waiting for the rescue teams to arrive," Halil Celik, a young man who lived in the center of the city, told Reporters as he stood beside the ruins of a building that collapsed before his eyes.

"All of a sudden, a quake tore down the building in front of me. All the bystanders, we all ran to the building and rescued two injured people from the ruins."

Turkey's Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute said the magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck at 10.41 GMT and was five kilometres (three miles) deep. The quake's epicentre was at the village of Tabanli , 20 km north of Van city.

"We estimate around 1,000 buildings are damaged and our estimate is for hundreds of lives lost. It could be 500 or 1,000," Kandilli Observatory General Manager Mustafa Erdik told a news conference.

Around 10 buildings collapsed in Van city and about 25-30 buildings were brought to the ground in the nearby district of Ercis, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay told reporters.

Cihan news agency also reported that there were more than 50 dead bodies at a hospital in Ercis, a town near Van, near the quake's epicentre.

Massive Aftershocks

"A lot of buildings collapsed, many people were killed, but we don't know the number. We are waiting for emergency help, it's very urgent," Zulfukar Arapoglu, the mayor of Ercis, told news reporters.

"We need tents urgently and rescue teams. We don't have any ambulances, and we only have one hospital. We have many killed and injured," Arapoglu said.

Turkey's Red Crescent said one of its local teams was helping to rescue people from a student residence in Ercis. It said it was sending tents, blankets and food to the region.

More than 20 aftershocks shook the area, further unsettling residents ran out on the streets when the initial strong quake struck.

Television pictures showed rooms shaking and furniture falling to the ground as people ran from one building.

Dozens of emergency workers and residents crawled over a multi-storey building in Van as they searched for any people trapped inside.

Dazed People

Elsewhere, vehicles were crushed in the street by falling masonry while dazed people wandered past.

Some 50 injured people were taken to hospital in Van, state-run Anatolian news agency reported, but it did not give details on how serious their injuries were.

Major geological fault lines cross Turkey and small earthquakes are a near daily occurrence. Two large quakes in 1999 killed more than 20,000 people in northwest Turkey.

An earthquake struck Van province in November 1976 with 5,291 confirmed dead.
Two people were killed and 79 injured in May when an earthquake shook Simav in northwest Turkey.

Agency Reports/Uche Iheanacho
Additional Research/Editing: Hajia Sani