VAN PROVINCE, Turkey – At least 82 people have been killed and hundreds are feared dead by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck eastern Turkey on Sunday after dozens of buildings collapsed.
Desperate survivors have been seen digging into the rubble with their bare hands trying to rescue those trapped. Others were seen trying to reach their loved ones on cell phones.
"My wife and child are inside! My 4-month-old baby is inside!" CNN-Turk television showed one young man sobbing outside a collapsed building in Van, the provincial capital.
Nazmi Gur, a legislator from Van province described the quake saying, it was a powerful temblor. “It lasted for such a long time,” Gur told The Associated Press by telephone.
According to a report by CNN, the death toll could be in the hundreds. “We are estimating a death toll between 500 and 1,000” Mustafa Erdik, the head of the Kandilli observatory.
CNN’s Turk television reported that as many as eight buildings collapsed in Ercis, the hardest hit city by the quake. A dormitory and 10 buildings has also been reported to have collapsed in Van.
"There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed. There is too much destruction," Ercis mayor Zulfikar Arapoglu told NTV television. "We need urgent aid. We need medics."
As night has now fallen in Turkey, people are being seen using flashlights and shovels as they try to rescue those trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings.
MSNBC reported that Turkey sees frequent earthquakes. It was in 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people. In March 2010, a 6.0 magnitude earthquake killed 51 people in eastern Turkey. In 2003, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake killed 177 people in the southeastern city of Bingol. Turkey's worst earthquake in the last century came in 1939 in the eastern city of Erzincan, causing an estimated 160,000 deaths.
Video – CNN – Turkey seeks survivors in rubble after 7.2 earthquake.
Photo Slideshow – Images taken just after the powerful earthquake struck Turkey.
Comments