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.

Yalcin Akay was dug out from a collapsed six-storey building with a leg injury after he called a police emergency line on his phone and described his location, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. Three others, including two children, were also rescued from the same building in Ercis some 20 hours after the quake struck.

Rescuers searched for missing people throughout the night under generator-powered floodlights as tearful family members waited by the mounds of debris. Cranes and other heavy equipment lifted slabs of concrete, allowing residents to dig for the missing people with shovels.

Aid groups scrambled to set up tents, field hospitals and kitchens to help the thousands left homeless or those too afraid to re-enter their homes.

“We stayed outdoors all night, I could not sleep at all; my children, especially the little one, was terrified,” said Serpil Bilici of her six-year-old daughter, Rabia. “I grabbed her and rushed out when the quake hit, we were all screaming.”

Over 100 aftershocks rocked the area yesterday, with three of them reaching 4.7 magnitude, after another 100 aftershocks reverberated on Sunday.

The bustling, larger city of Van, about 55 miles south of Ercis, also sustained substantial damage, but Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said search efforts there were winding down.

Sahin expected the death toll in Ercis to rise, but not as much as initially feared. He told reporters rescue teams were searching for survivors in the ruins of 47 buildings — including a cafe where dozens could be trapped.

“There could be around 100 people (in the rubble). It could be more or it could be less,” Sahin said. “But we are not talking about thousands.”

He said around 279 people were killed and more than a 1,300 were injured.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who inspected the area said “close to all” mud-brick homes in surrounding villages had collapsed in the temblor that also rattled parts of Iran and Armenia.

In Ercis, a team specialising in mine disaster rescue combed through the rubble of a student dormitory.

“Four or five (apartments) have been levelled,” team member Mustafa Bilgin said. “University students are said to be living here. We don’t know how many of them are still inside.”

Dozens of people huddled around the building, silently watching the rescue work.

Women carried buckets to collect food from a soup kitchen as frequent aftershocks jolted the town.

More than 2,000 teams were involved in search-and-rescue and aid efforts, using sniffer dogs.

Several countries offered assistance, but Erdogan said Turkey was able to cope for the time being.

Azerbaijan, Iran and Bulgaria still sent aid, he said.

Turkey lies in one of the world’s most active seismic zones and is crossed by numerous fault lines.

In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.