The race against time continues in western Turkey, as hope of finding survivors faded, Sunday, November 1, two days after a powerful earthquake that killed at least 49 people, according to a last assessment of rescuers. 

The Turkish government agency for disaster situations (AFAD) said 49 people died and 896 were injured in the earthquake which also killed two teenagers in Greece.

An assessment still provisional.

The earthquake, whose magnitude was evaluated at 7 on the Richter scale by the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS) and 6.6 by the Turkish authorities, occurred Friday afternoon in the Aegean Sea, in the south -west of Izmir, Turkey's third largest city, and near the Greek island of Samos. 

In Bayrakli, the most affected Turkish city, rescuers continued Sunday to search the rubble of eight collapsed buildings, according to AFAD. 

Several dozen of them were trying to clear one of these sites, amid a deafening din of excavators and jackhammers and under the worried eyes of relatives of the missing, according to an AFP correspondent. 

A rescuer said at least ten people could still be stranded under the rubble of this building.

In the night, a man was uprooted alive from the rubble, 33 hours after the earthquake, according to media. 

Two days after the earthquake, fatigue and pain spread over the faces of the inhabitants, many of whom spent a second night outside, for fear of aftershocks.

Tents were set up to house families, and volunteers distributed soup to warm them. 

Two dead in Samos

The earthquake was so powerful that it was felt as far away as Istanbul and Athens, and triggered a mini-tsunami that inundated the streets of Seferihisar, a Turkish town near the epicenter, and swept the coastline of the Greek island of Samos. 

In Samos, two people were killed and extensive material damage was noted, according to the Greek authorities. 

Faced with this disaster, Turkey and Greece, two countries located in one of the most active seismic regions in the world, put diplomatic tensions aside, saying they were ready to help each other. 

The earthquake also aroused fears of a major earthquake threatening Istanbul, according to experts.  

In 1999, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000, including a thousand in Istanbul. 

With AFP 

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