At least 21 people were killed and more than a thousand wounded by a powerful earthquake which struck the east of Turkey, where the rescuers extracted this Saturday of first survivors of collapsed buildings.
AFAD said that at least 30 aftershocks had been recorded afterwards and that more than 400 teams of rescuers had been sent on the spot. At least 21 people died, including 17 in Elazig province and four in the neighboring province of Malatya, and 1,030 were injured, according to the latest AFAD report.
The population in shock
At least 30 people have been reported trapped in the rubble since the violent 6.8-magnitude earthquake that occurred Friday in the Sivrice district of Elazig province.
On Twitter, AFAD, the government agency for disaster situations, said early Saturday that five survivors have so far been extracted from ruined buildings. Among these survivors is a pregnant woman who spent a dozen hours under the rubble, according to state agency Anadolu. An AFP correspondent on site saw a team of rescuers evacuate a wounded man from the debris of a five-story building that collapsed in Elazig.
In the freezing cold of the street, some residents started fires to heat themselves during the night. “It was scary, the furniture fell on us. We rushed out, "Melahat Can, 47, an Elazig resident, told AFP. "We are going to spend the next few days on a farm outside the city."
Rescuers at work
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that "all necessary measures" would be taken to help the areas hit by the quake and that he had dispatched several ministers to the area. "With all of our institutions, including AFAD and the Red Crescent, we stand by our people," he tweeted.
Sports halls, schools and libraries have opened to accommodate people who fled their homes after the earthquake, authorities said. Turkish television broadcast images of panicked residents rushing outside the buildings, and at least one building with a burning roof. She also showed images of rescuers looking for possible survivors in the rubble of a building.
Turkey, a privileged area of earthquakes
Turkey, located in one of the most active seismic zones in the world, is frequently affected by earthquakes.
In 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck the northwest of the country, killing more than 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul. The last powerful earthquake to hit Turkey (7.1 on the Richter scale) occurred in 2011 in the eastern province of Van, killing more than 600 people.
In September, an earthquake measuring 5.7 hit Istanbul, the country's economic capital. Experts believe that a major earthquake can affect this city of more than 15 million inhabitants at any time, where the often anarchic habitat is rarely earthquake-resistant.
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