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7.2 earthquake hits turkey
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A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing at least 85 people and sparking widespread panic as it collapsed dozens of buildings into piles of twisted steel and chunks of concrete.
Tens of thousands of residents fled into the streets running, screaming and trying to reach relatives on cell phones. As the full extent of the damage became clear, desperate survivors dug into the rubble with their bare hands, trying to rescue the trapped and the injured.
Tens of thousands of residents fled into the streets running, screaming and trying to reach relatives on cell phones. As the full extent of the damage became clear, desperate survivors dug into the rubble with their bare hands, trying to rescue the trapped and the injured.
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Wow that's horrible 
KennyGS
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I guess I'm reading that deaths are in the hundreds this morning. I can't imagine the shock of knowing you have loved ones inside the rubble of what was once a building.
Seems like alot of earthquakes in the last couple years. Bad ones too. Everything is moving......
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quakes there are pretty common as there is a pretty major fault line going through
CivicDew
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I saw a story where a woman was pulled from a flattened house and was screaming that her 4 month old baby is still in there. I can't imagine the panic.
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Miracle as two-week-old girl is plucked naked from Turkey earthquake rubble... and rescuers dig mother out alive hours later
A 14-day-old baby girl was today pulled alive from the shattered ruins of a building in the city of Ercis in earthquake-ravaged Turkey - after 47 hours trapped in the rubble.
Azra - her name means 'Help' in Hebrew - was found naked, making her survival all the more remarkable because of the freezing temperatures gripping the region.
The baby was handed to rescuers by her mother, who was alive but still trapped in the wreckage.
Emergency workers cradled the fragile child with enormous care as they scrambled over the rubble and debris to get her to a a medical unit.
The rescue gives hope to hundreds in both Ercis and Van that loved ones still missing after Sunday's 7.2-magnitude earthquake may be alive.
Amazing survival story: Baby Azra - 14 days old, naked and trapped in a collapsed building for 47 hours - is rushed to a waiting medical unit in Ercis, Turkey
'Help': A doctor carries Azra, whose name means 'Help' in Hebrew, away from the ruins this morning. Her rescue gives hope to others whose loved ones remain missing
Double delight: Rescuers finally release the mother after plucking the baby from her arms
Tens of thousands of people spent a second night under canvas, in cars or huddled round small fires in towns rattled by aftershocks from a massive earthquake in eastern Turkey that killed hundreds.
The death toll from Sunday's quake rose to 366 overnight, and hundreds more are still missing after the quake and more than 200 aftershocks.
Casualties were concentrated so far in the town of Ercis and the provincial capital Van, with officials still checking outlying areas. Seven people were rescued overnight.
Freed: Rescuers free a teenager from a collapsed building in Ercis. Mesut Ozan Yilmaz, 18, who survived for 32 hours under the rubble of a tea house, said it was like 'the judgement day'
Cutting through: Rescue workers spent a second night cutting and digging their way through shattered buildings in the hope of freeing survivors
Tale of two cities: Residents of Ercis, made homeless by the quake, sit around a fire as lights illuminate a damaged building behind them, while rescuers dig their way into a collapsed building in Van
Still trapped: Yunus, a 13-year-old survivor in Ercis, remains caught in the rubble as rescuers work to free him. He was later successfully removed from the rubble and taken to hospital
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.
He said: 'It was like the judgment day.'
Unhurt but lying on a hospital bed under a thick blanket, his face still blackened by dust and dirt, Yilmaz gave a chilling account to CNN Turk of how he survived by diving under a table.
He said: '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.'
Criticised: CNN Turk reported that emergency services, especially the Red Crescent service, had not provided enough shelter for displaced residents in Van and Ercis
Growing effort: Much-needed aid is being provided by several aid organisations. Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay, overseeing relief operations in Van, said: 'From today there will be nothing our people lack'
Young survivor: A boy cries after being pulled from the remains of an internet cafe in Ercis. While the toddler sustained minor injuries, others in the cafe were not as lucky
Fighting for life: A young girl in a serious condition is cradled by a rescue worker as he runs toward a waiting ambulance
As grieving families prepared to bury their dead today, others kept vigil by the mounds of concrete rubble and masonry, praying rescue teams would find missing loved ones alive.
Crowds of residents gathered around collapsed buildings in the city, falling into an eerie silence as each person strained to hear even the faintest signs of life under the crumbled concrete and twisted steel.
The Disaster and Emergency Administration said 1,301 people had been injured and 2,262 buildings had collapsed.
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.
The relief agency was criticised for failing to ensure that some of the most needy, particularly in villages, received tents as temperatures plummeted overnight.
Ahmet Arikes, the 60-year-old headman of 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.'
Television images showed desperate men pushing each other roughly to grab tents from the back of a Red Crescent truck.
Quake prone: Turkey is particularly susceptible to seismic activity, with four tectonic plates within its borders. Sunday's quake occurred along the North Anatolian fault, which runs along the top of the country
Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the ruling AK Party, told CNN Turk, said: 'I didn't think the Red Crescent was successful enough in giving away tents. There is a problem on that matter. I apologise to our people.'
Soon after, the relief agency's chairman announced that 12,000 more tents would be delivered to Van today.
Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay, overseeing relief operations in Van, said: 'From today there will be nothing our people lack.'
Eerie silence: Residents keep quiet in order to hear the sound of survivors in a collapsed building in Van. The death toll has risen to 366 overnight
Hard work paying off: Rescue workers carry 28-year-old Murat Saglam, a survivor from a collapsed building, on a stretcher. At least eight people were rescued overnight, and work is continuing to find and free more
The trauma of the quake is one more problem to bear for Kurds, the dominant ethnic group in southeast Turkey, where more than 40,000 people have been killed in a three-decade-long separatist insurgency.
Osman Bayram, a 26-year-old teacher, who had move to Van from a more restive part of the southeast, said: 'We escaped from terrorism but now we are faced with an earthquake.'
The centre of Van, usually a vibrant city with a large population, resembled a ghost town with no lights in the streets or buildings.
Ear to the ground: Without sophisticated search equipment, residents press their ears to the ground to listen for signs of life. Rods are driven into the rubble to search for spaces beneath the surface
Nothing left: With little more than the clothes they are wearing and a small back of snatched belongings, these two men rest amid the rubble of Ercis
The sense of dislocation was greater in Ercis. With no homes to return to. 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 one collapsed building on the main road leading through Ercis, the area worst hit in Sunday's quake, exhausted rescue workers shouted at crowds of men pushing forward to catch a glimpse as efforts were made to free the corpse of a woman from the rubble.
One rescuer yelled: 'Get back! Are you not human? Show some respect! Do we not have any honour or pride?'
Article from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053142/Turkey-earthquake-2011-miracle-Ercis-Azra-week-old-girl-pulled-rubble.html
- Baby Azra's name means 'Help' in Hebrew
- She survived more than two days naked in freezing conditions
- Quake 'was like the judgment day' says one survivor
- Official death toll rises to 366 overnight
- Rescue attempts criticised for not providing enough shelter for homeless
A 14-day-old baby girl was today pulled alive from the shattered ruins of a building in the city of Ercis in earthquake-ravaged Turkey - after 47 hours trapped in the rubble.
Azra - her name means 'Help' in Hebrew - was found naked, making her survival all the more remarkable because of the freezing temperatures gripping the region.
The baby was handed to rescuers by her mother, who was alive but still trapped in the wreckage.
Emergency workers cradled the fragile child with enormous care as they scrambled over the rubble and debris to get her to a a medical unit.
The rescue gives hope to hundreds in both Ercis and Van that loved ones still missing after Sunday's 7.2-magnitude earthquake may be alive.
Amazing survival story: Baby Azra - 14 days old, naked and trapped in a collapsed building for 47 hours - is rushed to a waiting medical unit in Ercis, Turkey
'Help': A doctor carries Azra, whose name means 'Help' in Hebrew, away from the ruins this morning. Her rescue gives hope to others whose loved ones remain missing
Double delight: Rescuers finally release the mother after plucking the baby from her arms
Tens of thousands of people spent a second night under canvas, in cars or huddled round small fires in towns rattled by aftershocks from a massive earthquake in eastern Turkey that killed hundreds.
The death toll from Sunday's quake rose to 366 overnight, and hundreds more are still missing after the quake and more than 200 aftershocks.
Casualties were concentrated so far in the town of Ercis and the provincial capital Van, with officials still checking outlying areas. Seven people were rescued overnight.
Freed: Rescuers free a teenager from a collapsed building in Ercis. Mesut Ozan Yilmaz, 18, who survived for 32 hours under the rubble of a tea house, said it was like 'the judgement day'
Cutting through: Rescue workers spent a second night cutting and digging their way through shattered buildings in the hope of freeing survivors
Tale of two cities: Residents of Ercis, made homeless by the quake, sit around a fire as lights illuminate a damaged building behind them, while rescuers dig their way into a collapsed building in Van
Still trapped: Yunus, a 13-year-old survivor in Ercis, remains caught in the rubble as rescuers work to free him. He was later successfully removed from the rubble and taken to hospital
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.
He said: 'It was like the judgment day.'
Unhurt but lying on a hospital bed under a thick blanket, his face still blackened by dust and dirt, Yilmaz gave a chilling account to CNN Turk of how he survived by diving under a table.
He said: '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.'
Criticised: CNN Turk reported that emergency services, especially the Red Crescent service, had not provided enough shelter for displaced residents in Van and Ercis
Growing effort: Much-needed aid is being provided by several aid organisations. Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay, overseeing relief operations in Van, said: 'From today there will be nothing our people lack'
Young survivor: A boy cries after being pulled from the remains of an internet cafe in Ercis. While the toddler sustained minor injuries, others in the cafe were not as lucky
Fighting for life: A young girl in a serious condition is cradled by a rescue worker as he runs toward a waiting ambulance
As grieving families prepared to bury their dead today, others kept vigil by the mounds of concrete rubble and masonry, praying rescue teams would find missing loved ones alive.
Crowds of residents gathered around collapsed buildings in the city, falling into an eerie silence as each person strained to hear even the faintest signs of life under the crumbled concrete and twisted steel.
The Disaster and Emergency Administration said 1,301 people had been injured and 2,262 buildings had collapsed.
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.
The relief agency was criticised for failing to ensure that some of the most needy, particularly in villages, received tents as temperatures plummeted overnight.
Ahmet Arikes, the 60-year-old headman of 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.'
Television images showed desperate men pushing each other roughly to grab tents from the back of a Red Crescent truck.
Quake prone: Turkey is particularly susceptible to seismic activity, with four tectonic plates within its borders. Sunday's quake occurred along the North Anatolian fault, which runs along the top of the country
Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the ruling AK Party, told CNN Turk, said: 'I didn't think the Red Crescent was successful enough in giving away tents. There is a problem on that matter. I apologise to our people.'
Soon after, the relief agency's chairman announced that 12,000 more tents would be delivered to Van today.
Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay, overseeing relief operations in Van, said: 'From today there will be nothing our people lack.'
Eerie silence: Residents keep quiet in order to hear the sound of survivors in a collapsed building in Van. The death toll has risen to 366 overnight
Hard work paying off: Rescue workers carry 28-year-old Murat Saglam, a survivor from a collapsed building, on a stretcher. At least eight people were rescued overnight, and work is continuing to find and free more
The trauma of the quake is one more problem to bear for Kurds, the dominant ethnic group in southeast Turkey, where more than 40,000 people have been killed in a three-decade-long separatist insurgency.
Osman Bayram, a 26-year-old teacher, who had move to Van from a more restive part of the southeast, said: 'We escaped from terrorism but now we are faced with an earthquake.'
The centre of Van, usually a vibrant city with a large population, resembled a ghost town with no lights in the streets or buildings.
Ear to the ground: Without sophisticated search equipment, residents press their ears to the ground to listen for signs of life. Rods are driven into the rubble to search for spaces beneath the surface
Nothing left: With little more than the clothes they are wearing and a small back of snatched belongings, these two men rest amid the rubble of Ercis
The sense of dislocation was greater in Ercis. With no homes to return to. 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 one collapsed building on the main road leading through Ercis, the area worst hit in Sunday's quake, exhausted rescue workers shouted at crowds of men pushing forward to catch a glimpse as efforts were made to free the corpse of a woman from the rubble.
One rescuer yelled: 'Get back! Are you not human? Show some respect! Do we not have any honour or pride?'
Article from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053142/Turkey-earthquake-2011-miracle-Ercis-Azra-week-old-girl-pulled-rubble.html