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Little Azra, a two weeks old baby girl, has been rescued this morning from the shattered ruins of a building in the city of Ercis, after she miraculously lived more than 47 hours trapped.
Baby Azra was found naked in the rubble, making her survival all the more remarkable because of the freezing temperatures in the region.
Azra was immediately rushed to a medical unit.
Little Azra, a two weeks old baby girl, has been rescued this morning from the shattered ruins of a building in the city of Ercis, after she miraculously lived more than 47 hours trapped
Thousands of people spent a second night under tents, in cars or huddled round small fires in towns affected by the massive earthquake that hit eastern Turkey on Sunday.
The earthquake death toll has risen to 366 overnight, and hundreds more are still missing after the quake and more than 200 aftershocks.
The town of Ercis and the provincial capital Van are by far the most affected areas after the 7.2 magnitude earthquake.
Seven people were rescued overnight.
Mesut Ozan Yilmaz, 18, who survived for 32 hours under the rubble of a tea house where he had been passing time with friends, said it seemed like the end of the world.
“It was like the judgment day.”
Mesut Ozan Yilmaz told CNN Turk how he survived by diving under a table.
“The space we had was so narrow. People were fighting for more space to survive. I rested my head on a dead man’s foot. I know I would be dead now if I had let myself go psychologically.”
Crowds of residents gathered around collapsed buildings in the city, falling into silence as each person strained to hear even the faintest signs of life under the crumbled concrete and twisted steel.
According to Disaster and Emergency Administration, 1,301 people had been injured and 2,262 buildings had collapsed.
Up to now, the Turkish Red Crescent distributed up to 13,000 tents, and was preparing to provide temporary shelter for about 40,000 people, although there were no reliable estimates of the number of people left destitute.
Ahmet Arikes, 60, from Amik, a village outside Van that was reduced to rubble, said:
“We were sent 25 tents for 150 homes. Everybody is waiting outside, we’ve got small children, we’ve got nothing left.”
Soon after, the Turkish Red Crescent announced that 12,000 more tents would be delivered to Van today.
Van, usually a vibrant city with a large population, resembled a ghost town with no lights in the streets or buildings.
In Ercis, thousands of people, mostly men, paced the streets, stopping to look at the destruction or whenever there was some commotion at a rescue operation site.
At least 366 people are now known to have died and over 1,300 injured after the Sunday’s deadly earthquake in the eastern Turkey.
Turkish government said 12,000 more tents would be delivered to the cities of Ercis and Van and also to nearby villages affected by the 7.2-magnitude earthquake.
The government has been accused of failing to help some of the most needy people, who spent the second night in freezing conditions without heating and tents.
At least 366 people are now known to have died and over 1,300 injured after the Sunday's deadly earthquake in the eastern Turkey
On Tuesday, the Disaster and Emergency Administration said that more than 2,000 houses collapsed due to the quake.
Rescue teams with sniffer dogs continued through the night to search for survivors under the rubble of hundreds of collapsed buildings.
Cranes and other heavy equipment have been lifting slabs of concrete, and many residents have been joining in the rescue effort, digging with shovels.
It was reported that hopes of finding more survivors are fading, with no-one being pulled alive in the last seven to eight hours.
In one building there are fears that up to 50 are missing – buried under the rubble.
Authorities are now warning that the death toll is expected to rise further.
Besir Atalay,Turkish Deputy Prime Minister, who is in charge of the relief operation, said late on Monday that “from today there will be nothing our people lack”.
Authorities were also setting up more field hospitals and kitchens to help the thousands left homeless or too afraid to return to their homes amid continuing aftershocks.
However, survivors complained that not enough help was reaching them.
“We spent the night under freezing temperature. We shivered all night long, nobody provided us any blankets or heaters, we don’t even have a toilet,” one woman said.
“People are getting sick. It is very dirty here.”
A resident of Van said that even tents were in short supply.
“All the nylon tents are on the black market now,” Ibrahim Baydar, a 40-year-old tradesman from Van.
“We cannot find any. People are queuing for them. No tents were given to us whatsoever.”
Opposition politicians earlier decried what they called “a lack of crisis management”, saying that many people still lacked food, heating and tents.
Opposition also said Ankara was wrong to refuse offers of foreign aid.
The 75,000 population of Ercis town, which has been the worst hit, has dozens of collapsed buildings.
Most of those destroyed buildings in Ercis are apartment blocks with dozens of people missing at each site.
Ercis and Van, about 100km (60 miles) to the south, lie on a high plateau surrounded by snow-capped mountains.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office visited the area on Sunday and said many villages made of mud brick had been almost completely destroyed.
Hurriyet Daily News reported that some of the rescue workers have complained of a lack of adequate equipment.
“We are working with primitive tools, we have no equipment,” one rescuer said.
Five people were pulled from the ruins of one collapsed building in Ercis on Monday after one of them called for help on his mobile phone, Anatolia news agency said.
Another man was rescued later on Monday, some 30 hours after the earthquake struck.
The earthquake struck at 13:41 (10:41 GMT) on Sunday at a depth of 20km (12 miles), with its epicenter 16km north-east of Van in eastern Turkey, according to US Geological Survey.
About 200 aftershocks have hit the region, it added, including one of magnitude 6.0 late on Sunday.
Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines.
Turkish rescue teams are desperately searching for people trapped under rubble after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the country’s eastern Van region on Sunday.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay, 239 people died and 1,300 were injured in the massive earthquake.
The city of Ercis was the worst-hit, where more than 80 buildings fell.
Tens of thousands of people have been sleeping outside in freezing conditions last night.
Woman pulled from rubble in Van city
Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines.
Two earthquakes in 1999 with a magnitude of more than 7 killed 18,000 people in densely populated parts of the north-west of the country.
The earthquake on Sunday struck at 13:41 (10:41 GMT) at a depth of 20km (12 miles), with its epicentre 16km north-east of Van in eastern Turkey.
The earthquake was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks, also centered north of Van, including two of magnitude 5.6 soon after the quake and one of 6.0 late on Sunday.
The earthquake on Sunday struck at 13.41 (10.41 GMT) at a depth of 20km (12 miles), with its epicentre 16km north-east of Van in eastern Turkey
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been visiting the affected area by helicopter.
The prime minister said that villages close to Van were the worst affected as most buildings there were made of clay bricks.
He thanked other countries for their offers of help, but said Turkey could cope with the disaster on its own.
Up to 80 buildings, including a dormitory, collapsed in the worst-hit city of Ercis, about 60km north of Van, while 10 fell in Van itself.
Ambulances, soldiers and rescue teams rushed to Ercis, a Reuters photographer reported.
Survivors complained of a lack of heavy machinery to remove chunks of cement floors that had pancaked on to each other, the Associated Press reports.
There were also reported serious damage and casualties in the district of Celebibag, near Ercis.
“There are many people under the rubble,” said Celebibag mayor, Veysel Keser.
“We can hear their screams for help. We need urgent help.”
According to Turkey’s seismology institute, Kandilli Observatory, hundreds of people could have been killed.
“We estimate around 1,000 buildings are damaged and our estimate is for hundreds of lives lost – it could be 500 or 1,000,” said Mustafa Erdik from Kandilli Observatory.
Turkish seismologist Polat Gulkan claimed that building regulations were often ignored in Turkey.
“The enforcement of the code provisions is not at the standard that we would like to see it,” Polat Gulkan said.
It was reported that residents of Van and Ercis have been spending the night huddled around camp fires in the open air, fearing more aftershocks.
Rescuers could be seen working by torchlight, using their bare hands and shovels.
Turkish rescue teams are desperately searching for people trapped under rubble after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the country’s eastern Van region on Sunday
The earthquake cut electricity and telephone lines and the authorities in some areas have cut gas to avoid the risk of fire.
More search and rescue teams were being sent from other parts of the country.
Hakki Erskoy, from the Turkish Red Crescent, said aid teams from the north and east of Turkey were being sent to the earthquake-hit area.
Hakki Erskoy said camps were being set up to shelter people and blankets, and that food and water were being sent, along with mobile kitchens.
Military aircraft were being deployed to help with the rescue and relief efforts, Hakki Erskoy said.
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A massive 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck province of Van in eastern Turkey on Sunday, collapsing about 45 buildings according to the deputy prime minister.
So far, only one person was found dead and immediately confirmed, but experts estimated that up to 1,000 people could have been killed.
The worst damage was caused to the town of Ercis, in the mountainous eastern province of Van, close to the Iranian border. The city of Van also suffered substantial damage.
Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said:
“Around 10 buildings have collapsed in the city of Van and around 25 or 30 have collapsed in Ercis, including a dormitory.”
Besir Atalay said authorities had no information yet on remote villages, adding that the governor was now touring the region by helicopter to assess damage.
The Turkish Red Crescent said its rescuers pulled several injured people out of the collapsed dormitory in Ercis, which sits on a geological fault line
The earthquake’s epicenter was in the village of Tabanli.
Turkish authorities did not provide a casualty figure for the moment, but the Kandilli observatory, Turkey’s main seismography center, said the quake was capable of killing many more people.
“We are estimating a death toll between 500 and 1,000,” Mustafa Erdik, head of the Kandilli observatory, told a televised news conference.
Mustafa Erdik estimate was based on the structure of the housing in the area and the strength of the quake.
Television footage showed damaged buildings and vehicles, crushed under falling masonry, and panicked residents wandering the streets.
The Turkish Red Crescent said its rescuers pulled several injured people out of the collapsed dormitory in Ercis, which sits on a geological fault line.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was reportedly heading to Van to see the damage.
At least 50 injured people were treated in the courtyard of the state hospital in Van, a bustling city with many apartment buildings, according to the state-run Anatolia news agency.
Zulfikar Arapoglu, the mayor of Ercis, told NTV television:
“There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed. There is too much destruction.”
“We need urgent aid. We need medics.”
Van province has a population of around 1 million people.
Serious damage and casualties were also reported in the district of Celebibag, near Ercis.
Veysel Keser, mayor of Celebibag, told NTV:
“There are many people under the rubble.”
“People are in agony, we can hear their screams for help. We need urgent help.”
“It’s a great disaster,” mayor said.
“Many buildings have collapsed, student dormitories, hotels and gas stations have collapsed.”
Some houses also collapsed in the province of Bitlis, where at least one person, an 8-year-old girl was killed, authorities said. The quake also toppled the minarets of two mosques in the nearby province of Mus, reports said.
Van’s airport was damaged and planes were being diverted to neighboring cities, NTV reported.
Panicked people spilled into the streets as rescue workers and residents using their bare hands and shovels struggled to find people believed to be trapped under collapsed buildings, television footage showed.
Several Cabinet ministers headed to the area as authorities mobilized rescue teams across the country.
The quake had a depth of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles), which is relatively shallow and could potentially cause more damage.
Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which is crossed by fault lines.
In 1999, about 18,000 people were killed by two powerful earthquakes that struck northwestern Turkey. Authorities blamed shoddy construction for many of the deaths.
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A 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey, in the province of Van, on the border with Iran.
The quake struck at 13:41, local time, at 17 km (10 miles) north-east Van city.
Van province appeared to be particularly badly hit and officials warning of damage to buildings and infrastructure. Some of the buildings in the area of Van have collapsed and casualties are reported.
According to specialists, Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines.
A 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey, in the province of Van, on the border with Iran
In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 hit Turkey and killed almost 20,000 people in densely populated parts of the north-west of the country.
TV footages showed damaged buildings and vehicles, and panicked residents spilling out into streets.
According to Anatolia news agency, the rescue workers were searching the wreckage of a seven-storey building in the city of Van for people thought to be trapped in the rubble.
It was also reported that 50 people had been taken to hospital in Van with injuries.
Bekir Kaya, mayor of Van, told NTV television:
“Two buildings collapsed in Van, but the telephone system is jammed due to panic and we can’t assess the entire damage immediately.”
Zulfikar Arapoglu, mayor of Ercis, another town in Van province, told NTV: “There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed, there is too much destruction.”
“We need urgent aid, we need medics,” Zulfikar Arapoglu is reported by the Associated Press as saying.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) originally gave the magnitude as 7.3 but later corrected it to 7.2.
But Turkey’s Kandilli observatory gave it a preliminary magnitude of 6.6.
The USGS has revised the depth of the quake from 7.2 km (4.5 miles) to 20 km (12.4 miles), which is still relatively shallow and has the potential to cause damage.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was reportedly heading to Van to see the damage.
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