Hundreds of survivors shiver in Turkey after quake

Hundreds of earthquake survivors huddled in aid tents and around bonfires in eastern Turkey, seeking relief from the winter cold after a strong earthquake knocked down stone and mud-brick houses in five villages, killing 51 people.

The damage appeared worst in the village of Okçular, which was almost razed. At least 15 of the village's 900 residents were killed, Elazığ’s governor's office said Monday, and the air was thick with dust from crumpled homes and barns.

The pre-dawn earthquake caught many residents in their sleep, shaking the area's poorly made buildings into piles of rubble. Panicked survivors fled into the narrow streets of this village perched on a hill in front of snow-covered mountains, with some people climbing out of windows to escape.

"I tried to get out of the door but it wouldn't open. I came out of the window and started helping my neighbors," Ali Riza Ferhat of Okçular told private channel NTV. "We removed six bodies," he said.

The Kandilli seismology center said the 6.0-magnitude quake hit at 4:32 a.m. Monday (9 p.m. EST Sunday) near the village of Başyurt in a remote, sparsely populated area of the eastern Turkish Elazığ province. The region is 550 kilometers east of the capital, Ankara.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Kandilli Observatory's director, Mustafa Erdik, urged residents not to enter any damaged homes, warning they could topple from aftershocks that Erdik said could last for days.

More than 100 aftershocks measuring up to a 5.5 magnitude shook the region on Monday alone.

In addition to the deaths, 34 people were being treated for injuries, Turkey's crisis center said.

Abdulkerim Sekerdağ, 72, said he had just risen for early morning prayers when the quake hit.

"The jolt threw me onto the ground," he told The Associated Press. "When I got up I checked my animals and then I checked on my neighbors."

"Two of them were buried. We pulled them out," he said, adding that they were alive but injured.

Men used shovels and bare hands to dig two bodies out from under piles of dirt, rubble and concrete blocks, video footage showed. Both bodies were covered in blankets and carried away. One appeared to be a baby or young child.

"Everything has been knocked down, there is not a stone in place," said Yadin Apaydın, administrator for the village of Yukarı Kanatlı, where three died.

Fifteen people were killed in the nearby village of Yukarı Demirci, Elazığ Gov. Muammer Erol said, while four each were killed in the villages of Kayalık and Göçmezler. The others died after being taken to a hospital in the town of Kovancılar.

Most of the dead were immediately buried according to Muslim traditions. A few funerals had to be put off until Tuesday.

The tremor also knocked down barns, killing many farm animals. A half-dozen of dead cows were seen partially buried near one collapsed home. One man, Haci Şekerdağ, said he lost eight cows and calves - his main livelihood.

The Turkish Red Crescent set up tents and villagers laid plastic sheeting to shelter them from the cold and dirt. The government said it rushed ambulance helicopters, prefabricated homes and mobile kitchens into the stricken area.

Erdoğan blamed the region's mud-brick buildings for the amount of deaths and said the government housing agency would build quake-proof homes in the area.

The quake was also felt in the neighboring provinces of Tunceli, Bingöl and Diyarbakır, where residents fled to the streets in panic and stayed outdoors. Schools were closed for two days. In Tunceli province, the quake caused one school's walls to crack.

A museum in Elazığ, displaying artifacts from the Iron-age Kingdom of Urartu, was not affected by the quake. Nearby dams also remained intact.

Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, much of which is on top of two main fault lines. In 1999, two powerful quakes struck the country's northwest, killing about 18,000 people. In 2003, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake killed 177 people in Bingöl, including 84 children whose school dormitory collapsed.


/Hurriyet Daily News/