Turkey quake death toll now at least 35 – officials

Members of rescue services carry a wounded man, that was found in the rubble of a building destroyed on Friday’s earthquake in Elazig, eastern Turkey, on Saturday January 25, 2020. Rescue workers were continuing to search for people buried under the rubble of apartment blocks in Elazig and neighboring Malatya. Mosques, schools, sports halls, and student dormitories were opened for hundreds who left their homes after the quake (IHH/ Humanitarian Relief Foundation via AP)

ANKARA, Turkey — Working against the clock in freezing temperatures, Turkish rescue teams pulled more survivors from collapsed buildings Sunday, days after a powerful magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit the country’s east.

Authorities said the death toll rose to at least 35 people.

Turkish television showed Ayse Yildiz, 35, and her 2-year-old daughter Yusra being dragged out of the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in the city of Elazig. They had been trapped for 28 hours after the earthquake struck on Friday night.

The strong quake also injured over 1,600 people but 45 survivors have been pulled alive from the rubble so far, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a news conference Sunday in Istanbul.

As overnight temperatures dropped to -5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit), emergency teams set up more than 9,500 tents for displaced residents and distributed 17,000 hot meals.

Rescue teams concentrated their efforts in the city’s Mustafa Pasa neighborhood and the nearby town of Sivrice, the closest residential area to the quake’s epicenter.

Nearly 680 aftershocks rocked the region as more than 3,500 rescue experts scrambled through wrecked buildings to reach survivors, working around the clock. A magnitude 4.3 quake hit also neighboring Malatya province on Sunday morning, the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) said.

The agency said 76 buildings were destroyed and more than 1,000 damaged in the quake. Unmanned aerial drones were being used to survey damaged neighborhoods and coordinate rescue efforts.

Erdogan said every effort was being made to alleviate conditions and promised to house displaced residents as soon as possible.

“Turkey has begun to heal the wounds of this great disaster in unity, togetherness and coming together,” he said.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu promised financial help for the victims of the quake.

The president visited the disaster zone on Saturday to inspect the rescue operation, meet with injured people in the hospital and attend the funeral of a mother and son.

Erdogan also condemned what he called a “smear campaign” on social media by those questioning the Turkish government’s preparations for earthquakes. A prosecutor in Ankara has opened an investigation into social media posts about Friday’s quake.

Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which sits atop two major fault lines.

Across Turkey, there was an outpouring of support for victims of the quake. Some soccer clubs announced they would donate the receipts of their weekend matches while fans of the Fenerbahce soccer club threw scarves and hats on to the pitch during a game in Istanbul, chanting “Cold Elazig, Fenerbahce is with you!”

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Sunday that 104 people were receiving hospital treatment after the quake, 34 of them in intensive care but not in critical condition.

Victims of the quake were taking refugees in tents, mosques, schools, sports halls, and student dormitories. Authorities warned people not to return to homes that could be unsafe.

A prison in Adiyaman, 110 kilometers (70 miles) southwest of the epicenter, was evacuated due to damage, with more than 800 prisoners transferred to nearby jails.

Friday’s main quake hit at 8:55 p.m in the city that lies 565 kilometers (350 miles) east of Ankara. It’s not the first time Elazig has seen a fatal quake — a magnitude 6.0 earthquake killed 51 people there in 2010.

Turkey’s worst quake in decades came in 1999, when a pair of strong earthquakes struck northwest Turkey, killing around 18,000 people.