The hope of finding survivors is shattered this Sunday as rescuers removed several bodies from the rubble of a building collapsed during the powerful earthquake that struck eastern Turkey, killing at least 35 people.
In Sürsürü, a district of the city of Elazig located not far from the epicenter of this 6.7 magnitude tremor that occurred on Friday evening, three lifeless bodies were found in the rubble of a residential building that s 'has collapsed.
Temperatures below - 10 ° C
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Sunday that the provisional death toll now stands at 35 dead and more than 1,600 injured. A hundred people were still hospitalized, including 13 in serious condition. Rescuers, hard at work in freezing cold, have also removed 45 people alive from the rubble since Friday evening, the same source.
But more than 36 hours after the earthquake, and as temperatures drop below -10 ° C at night, the hope of finding survivors weakens. Pressed by time, the rescuers must nevertheless proceed with precaution to avoid a collapse of the rubble.
More than 600 aftershocks since Friday
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited Elazig on Saturday, said on Sunday that "the necessary measures will be taken immediately (...) to ensure that no one is left homeless".
The fear of the inhabitants remains nevertheless strong because of the aftershocks - more than 600 since Friday evening - which shake the region of Elazig. Many of them spent the night outside again, despite the cold. According to the authorities, more than 15,000 people are housed in gymnasiums and schools, and more than 5,000 tents have been installed in the city to accommodate residents.
Turkey in the middle of a seismic zone
The city of Elazig, whose agglomeration has some 350,000 inhabitants, including a large Kurdish community, is regularly shaken by earthquakes.
Turkey is located in one of the most active seismic zones in the world. 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.
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