Deadly 7.0 earthquake hits Aegean
Hundreds of Greeks and Turks injured as powerful tremor collapses buildings and traps residents
AT LEAST 17 people were killed in Turkey and two in Greece yesterday when a powerful earthquake shook the Aegean, collapsing buildings and trapping people under rubble.
The earthquake struck with a magnitude up to 7.0, was felt in Athens and Istanbul, and triggered a mini-tsunami on the Greek island of Samos, where a teenage boy and girl were killed. Turkey’s disaster relief agency said 419 people were injured by the quake, whose epicentre in the Aegean Sea, at a depth of 10.3 miles, was 8.6 miles off the town of Neon Karlovasion on Samos.
Video shared on social media showed plumes of dust rising from collapsing buildings in the Turkish province of Izmir, while people crawled over destroyed structures searching for survivors. About 20 buildings had coll apsed in t he coastal province, according to Tunc Soyer, the mayor of Izmir city, with officials focusing their rescue efforts on 17 of them.
About 70 people had been pulled alive from under rubble, while a further 20 were believed to be trapped in a supermarket after an 11-storey building collapsed. Scenes of devastation suggested the death toll could rise further.
“Some of our fellow citizens are stuck in the rubble,” said Murat Kurum, the environment minister.
In one video filmed in Izmir, a resort city of 3 million residents filled with high-rise apartment blocks, rescuers and police used chainsaws as they tried to penetrate the rubble of a collapsed seven-storey building.
Emergency workers asked for silence as they listened for survivors, while helpers cleared debris with their bare hands, passing masonry in a human chain. One hospital in Izmir evacuated on to the street as a precaution against aftershocks, with some patients still strapped to gurneys and hooked to intravenous lines.
Other footage showed seawater surging through streets carrying debris and furniture. Vehicles in Izmir’s Seferihisar district were swept along by the water and piled on top of each other.
Ismail Yetiskin, mayor of Seferihisar district, said sea levels rose as a result of the quake. “There seems to be a small tsunami,” he told broadcaster NTV.
Idil Gungor, who runs a hotel in the district, told NTV that fish had washed up in the garden of the hotel, about 50 metres inland.
On Samos, a 17-year- old girl and 15-year-old boy were confirmed dead, Greek ERT public television reported.
The pair were walking home from school in the port town of Vathy when the earthquake hit at 1:51pm local time (11:51am GMT). They were later found unconscious after being hit by a collapsing wall. Unsuccessful attempts were made to resuscitate the girl, ERT said.
“Words fail when children are lost. In these difficult hours, our thoughts turn to their families and Samos experiencing unbearable pain,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister, said.