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Devastating earthquake strikes Turkey's
Kurdish region 24.10.2011
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Rescue workers work to save people trapped under
debris after an earthquake in Ercis, near the
eastern Turkish city of Van, early October 24, 2011.
More than 200 people were killed and hundreds more
feared dead on Monday after an earthquake struck
parts of southeast Turkey, where rescue teams worked
through the night to try to free survivors crying
for help from under rubble. Photo: Reuters
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A woman cries in front a collapsed house after an
earthquake in the Ercis province of Van, in the
Kurdish region in eastern Turkey, on October 24,
2011. Photo: Getty Images.
October
24, 2011
VAN, The Kurdish region of Turkey, — An
earthquake of 7.3 magnitude rocked eastern Turkey
(Northern Kurdistan) on Sunday, with a seismological
institute saying up to 1,000 people could lie dead
under the rubble of dozens of collapsed buildings.
Turkey’s strongest earthquake in years struck Van, a
large eastern city populated mainly by Kurds.
“Five hundred to 1,000 people are estimated to have
been killed in the quake,” Mustafa Erdik, director
of the Kandilli seismological institute in Istanbul,
told reporters.
Earlier reports had not mentioned casualties, but
many were feared trapped in collapsed buildings and
officials warned they were struggling to assess the
extent of the damage.
“There is serious human and material loss,” said a
brief statement from the national disaster body,
which is based in the prime minister’s office.
Officials said around 50 buildings had collapsed,
including a dormitory.
At least 50 people were taken to hospital in Van and
nearly a thousand people in Ercis, a district of
around 100,000 people in the same region,www.ekurd.net
where the most serious damage occurred, according to
media reports.
“Many buildings alongside a major street in Ercis
were collapsed,” said an AFP photographer at the
quake scene. “There is electricity cut throughout
district. People are using lanterns,” he said.
Television footage showed panicked residents using
shovels and other digging tools trying to rescue
people trapped under a collapsed eight-storey
building in the city centre.
Search and rescue teams were using electrical
generator lights to help the search for trapped
victims as the night fell.
“An eight-storey apartment collapsed,” a local from
Ercis told AFP.
“There are efforts to rescue people but the loss is
big. I myself saw three to four dead,” he added.
Most people are expected to spend the night
outdoors, with the temperature expected to dip to
three degrees Celsius (37 Fahrenheit).
“People are panicked. The telecommunication services
have collapsed. We cannot reach anybody,” Van Mayor
Bekir Kaya told NTV television.
The government was due to send satellite phones to
the region, according to media reports. Six
helicopters, including four ambulance helicopters,
as well as C-130 military cargo planes were sent to
the area carrying tents, food and medicine.
The US Geological Survey measured the quake at 7.3
magnitude and said an aftershock of 5.6 magnitude
had also been registered. It placed the epicentre of
the aftershock, which happened at 1056 GMT, at 19
kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Van.
The depth of the initial quake was 7.2 kilometers
(4.5 miles), according to the US seismologists. The
depth of the aftershock was 20 kilometers, they
added.
The epicentre of the quake, which struck around 1041
GMT, was at Tabanli in Van province, the Kandilli
institute said.
The Turkish institute said there were two
aftershocks which affected the villages of Ilikaynak
and Gedikbulak in particular.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelled his
official programme and was due to visit the quake
region on Sunday, NTV said.
Although the quake damaged Van’s airport it did not
disrupt the air traffic, the Anatolia news agency
reported, citing civilian aviation authorities.
Van, a Kurdish city of 380,000 mainly Kurdish
inhabitants, is more than 1,200 kilometres from the
capital Ankara.
The quake was also felt across the border in
(Eastern Kurdistan) northwestern Iran, causing some
panic in major cities, Iranian media reported, but
without any mention of casualties or damage.
The tremors were strong enough to cause “scenes of
panic among the population of the cities,” according
to several Iranian media.
Earthquake-prone Turkey lies atop several fault
lines.
In 1999, two strong quakes in the heavily populated
and industrialised regions of northwest Turkey left
some 20,000 dead.
And a powerful earthquake in the town of Caldiran in
Van province killed 3,840 people in 1976.
Copyright ©, respective author or news agency,
AFP
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