Search for survivors continues after quake

FOUR people were pulled alive from the rubble yesterday when one managed to call for help on his mobile phone after a 7.2-magnitude quake levelled buildings and killed 279 people in eastern Turkey.

Dozens of people were trapped in mounds of concrete, twisted steel and construction debris after hundreds of buildings in two cities and mud-brick homes in nearby villages flattened or partially collapsed in the earthquake that struck on Sunday afternoon.

Worst-hit was Ercis — an eastern city of 75,000 close to the Iranian border that lies in one of Turkey’s most earthquake-prone zones — where about 80 multi-storey buildings collapsed.