VAN, TURKEY (BNO NEWS) — The death toll following a powerful earthquake which struck near the Turkish city of Van on Sunday afternoon has reached at least 264 as rescue workers continue searching the debris for survivors.
Eastern Turkey was struck by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake at around 1.41 p.m. local time (1041 GMT) on Sunday. The epicenter of earthquake was about 16 kilometers (9 miles) north-northeast of Van, the capital of the province which carries the same name. It struck about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) deep.
Hundreds of buildings in the city of Van and the surrounding region collapsed, trapping scores of people underneath the rubble. Officials at Turkey’s Kandilli Observatory estimated on Sunday evening that the final death toll could be as high as 1,000.
On Monday morning, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said the official death toll had reached at least 239 while more than 1,300 people have been treated for injuries. Turkish Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin later said the death toll had risen to 264.
More than 2,000 rescue workers, including some from neighboring Azerbaijan, immediately rushed to the region after the earthquake, which is the country’s most powerful earthquake in over a decade. It remains unclear how many people are still missing, although the number is believed to be in the hundreds.
Working by torchlight and in freezing conditions, locals and rescue workers sometimes used bare hands to shift the rubble in a desperate attempt to reach survivors overnight. The Turkish Red Crescent said survivors were still being found on Monday afternoon, including in the city of Ercis where at least 25 apartment buildings and a student dormitory collapsed.
Aftershocks were also continuing on Monday and could last for weeks or even months to come. As of late Monday afternoon, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported a total of 21 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater. The strongest was a 6.0-magnitude aftershock.
Sunday’s earthquake is the deadliest in Turkey since a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Düzce province in November 1999, just months after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing at least 17,118 people and injuring nearly 50,000 others.
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