Turkey quake death toll reaches 17

Rescue workers have recovered the bodies of five more victims of Turkey’s latest earthquake, increasing the death toll to at least 17, including a Japanese aid worker who came after last month’s devastating quake.

Disaster management official Askit Dayi said the body of a middle-aged man was found under one of two collapsed hotels, the Bayram Hotel, in the eastern city of Van.

Four more bodies were pulled out later, said Turkey’s state-run TRT television.

“We are not able to hear any voices,” said Mr Dayi. “But still we are removing layers of concrete in a way as if there are survivors.”

Recep Salci, of the rescue group Akut, told NTV television that freezing temperatures at night were also posing a threat to any possible survivors.

Rescue teams were using an emergency evacuation plan to determine possible escape routes within the collapsed building, said Bulent Gunduz, of the Siemens private rescue team.

“We can see all escape routes and fire stairs,” he said. “The emergency floor plan has become like a compass for us.”

Relatives of missing people huddled around campfires near the wreckage of the once five-storey Bayram Hotel as they waited for news.

It was not clear how many people were still missing, but they included two Turkish journalists. The Aslan Hotel in Van also collapsed.

“We hope to finish our search by midnight Friday,” Mr Dayi said.

The hotels, apparently weakened by last month’s magnitude-7.2 earthquake, came down on Wednesday night when a magnitude-5.6 quake shook the area.

Angry residents protested in Van, accusing authorities of failing to properly inspect the buildings following the October 23 quake which killed more than 600 people. Police responded with pepper spray.

Those protests spread to national TV when one anchorman, Mustafa Yenigun of Flash TV, covered his mouth with a black tape as he held a banner which read: “People are under the rubble because of uncompleted tasks” – a reference to the failure to fully inspect damaged buildings.

Rescue worker Ramazan Demiregen said the steel rods in the columns of the collapsed Bayram Hotel were too thin.

Turks paid tribute to the dead Japanese aid worker, Atsushi Miyazaki, calling him a benefactor on Twitter and lamenting that he died in a relatively weak earthquake compared with the massive one and tsunami that devastated Japan in March.

“His name is Atsushi, his surname is human,” wrote Ertugrul Ozkok, a columnist for Hurriyet newspaper today. “A great Samurai.”

Mr Miyazaki had helped distribute meat to quake survivors in Van province during Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice.

Other Japanese workers said they were thankful for Turkish aid workers who went to help Japan in March, local media reported.

Mr Miyazaki’s 32-year-old female colleague, Miyuki Konnai, was rescued alive from the wreckage and is in a stable condition.