Quake rocks Turkey, 321 dead

Earlier, Okuyan had told the NTV news channel from Duzce, the epicentre of the quake, that around 100 people were killed in the province while close to 500 others were injured. “Our sole effort is to reach people trapped under rubble,” Okuyan said as a violent after- shock jolted the town. “Many buildings have collapsed, but most of them were empty. I am hoping the death toll will not increase much.” NTV had earlier reported a provisional toll in the region of at least 88 dead and 1,592 injured, while the government crisis centre in Ankara put the toll at 69 killed and 797 hurt.

The quakestruck Duzce at 1657 GMT and was followed by dozens of aftershocks, the smallest of which measured 4.5, the Kandilli Seismological Institute in Istanbul said. The head of the institute, Ahmet Mete Isikara, explained that Friday’s tremor was a fresh earthquake and not an aftershock of the August 17 quake. The August earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.4 on the Richter scale, had struck the city of Izmit some 100 kms (60 miles) West of Duzce killing nearly 20,000 people in Turkey’s highly industrialized northwest.

NTV reported that a four-member Hungarian team with sniffer dogs, had arrived in Bolu, the main city of the province with the same name, to help Turkish rescuers, but were failing to pick up signs of life from collapsed buildings. Earth-moving machines had already moved in to clear the wreckage of some of the damaged buildings, it added. Turkish Army troops were working in the town of Kaynasli, some 15 km to the East of Duzce, which was largely reduced to rubble. Some residents were also lending ahelping hand to rescue efforts carried out in pitch darkness, while others were camping out in front of the few undamaged buildings, gathering around little bonfires as cold settled over the town with nightfall.

Several ambulances and construction machines poured into Kaynasli along a heavily damaged road, which was closed by security forces to traffic other than aid-carrying vehicles. Electricity was interrupted in the region and phone lines were jammed, making communication difficult. The crisis center in Ankara immediately dispatched aid to the quake zone, while Foreign Minister Ismail Cem launched an appeal for foreign search-and-rescue teams.

“We have contacted Greece, Algeria, Israel, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic, France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Denmark,” Cem told reporters in Ankara. Several injured people from the quake zone were transferred to hospitals in Ankara, which were evacuated to make room for the quake survivors, as hundreds rushed to donate blood, theAnatolia News Agency said. “We are facing a big disaster,” Turkish President Suleyman Demirel said of the temblor that came less than a week ahead of a summit of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe on November 18-19 in Istanbul, located less than 300 kilometers (180 miles) West of Duzce.