Turkey scrambles to reach earthquake victims

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck eastern Turkey has killed at least 138 people and the death toll was expected to rise as rescuers sifted through the rubble of collapsed buildings and reached outlying villages.

The hardest hit area was Ercis, an eastern city of 75,000 close to the Iranian border, which lies on one of Turkey's most earthquake-prone zones. The bustling city of Van, about 90km to the south, also sustained substantial damage.

Highways in the area caved in. The temblor struck at 1:41 pm (1041 GMT), the US Geological Survey said.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at least 93 people were killed in Van, 45 others died in Ercis, and about 350 were injured. Several people were still trapped under rubble, he said, without citing any estimates.

Erdogan said rescue work would continue through the night.

The death toll will rise further when information from other towns and remote villages comes in, an official at the provincial crisis centre in the city of Van told Reuters news agency.

Up to 600 people are known to have been injured and between 300 and 400 are missing, believed to be buried beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings, the official said.

Up to 80 buildings collapsed in Ercis, including a dormitory, and 10 buildings collapsed in Van, the Turkish Red Crescent said. The sheer number of collapsed buildings gave rise to fears that the death toll could rise substantially.

US scientists recorded over 100 aftershocks in eastern Turkey within 10 hours of the quake, including one with a magnitude of 6.0. Authorities advised people to stay away from damaged homes, warning they could collapse in the aftershocks.

Civilians joined in the desperate search, using their bare hands and working under generator-powered floodlights.

Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from Van, said rescuers lacked proper tools to search for survivors and were using equipments from nearby roadworks.

"Everyone here is desperate to help but no one has the right tools and the expertise," she said.

"We're not seeing what we know exists in Turkey, professionally trained earthquake disaster relief teams.

"They are saying they can hear voices, but there are so many other noises here, so it's impossible to pick up anything with any certainty."

The centre of the city was pitch black due to power outages.

Residents in Van and Ercis lit campfires, preparing to spend the night outdoors while the Red Crescent began setting up tents in a stadium. Others sought shelter with relatives in nearby villages.

Students gathered around a camp fire in Van's centre told journalists that bread prices on the black market had more than quadrupled. Dazed survivors wandered past vehicles crushed by falling masonry.

Rescue efforts went deep into the night under generator-powered floodlights. Workers tied steel rods around large concrete slabs in Van, then lifted them with heavy machinery.

Residents sobbed outside the ruins of one flattened eight-story building, hoping that missing relatives would be found. Witnesses said eight people were pulled from the rubble, but frequent aftershocks hampered search efforts. By late evening, some joy emerged as a ninth, a teenage girl, was pulled out alive.

Some inmates escaped a prison in Van after one of its walls collapsed. TRT television said around 150 inmates had fled, but a prison official said the number was much smaller and many later returned.

Many buildings also collapsed in the district of Celebibag, near Ercis, including student dormitories, hotels and gas stations.

"There are many people under the rubble," Veysel Keser, the mayor of Celebibag, told NTV. "People are in agony, we can hear their screams for help."

Authorities had no information yet on remote villages but the provincial governor was touring the region by helicopter and the government sent in tents, field kitchens and blankets.

The earthquake also shook buildings in neighbouring Armenia and Iran.

In the Armenian capital of Yerevan, 160km from Ercis, people rushed into the streets in fear but no damage or injuries were reported. Armenia was the site of a devastating earthquake in 1988 that killed 25,000 people.

Sunday's quake caused panic in several Iranian towns close to the Turkish border and caused cracks in buildings in the city of Chaldoran, Iranian state TV reported.

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

More recently, a 6.0-magnitude quake in March 2010 killed 51 people in eastern Turkey, while in 2003, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake killed 177 people in the southeastern city of Bingol.


Rescue workers in Turkey are scrambling to dig people out of the rubble after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the eastern Van province. State-run TRT television said at least 85 people were reported killed and the country's seismology institute said up to 1,000 people could be trapped under collapsed buildings. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan went by helicopter from Van to Ercis to see firsthand the scale of devastation. Meanwhile, civilians joined in the desperate search, using their bare hands and working under generator-powered floodlights. Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reports from Van, Turkey.

Reportagem e informações veiculada no portal da emissora de tv Aljazeera.