Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Quake death toll rises to 37
Mom, kids pulled out alive; leaders of Greece, Turkey talk
IZMIR, Turkey — Three young children and their mother were rescued alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in western Turkey on Saturday, some 23 hours after a powerful earthquake in the Aegean Sea killed at least 39 people and injured more than 800 others.
The Friday afternoon quake that struck Turkey’s Aegean coast and north of the Greek island of Samos registered a magnitude that Turkish authorities put at 6.6, while other seismology institutes said it measured 6.9. It toppled buildings in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city, and triggered a small tsunami in the Seferihisar district and on the Greek island. Hundreds of aftershocks followed.
At least 37 people were killed in Izmir, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said from a crisis coordination center before visiting the wrecked sites.
But rescue teams on Saturday made contact with 38-year old Seher Perincek and her four children inside a fallen building in Izmir and cleared a corridor to bring them out.
One by one, the mother and three of her children were removed from the rubble as rescuers applauded or hugged.
The health minister as well as rescue worker Ahmet Yavuz told HaberTurk television hours later that one of the children had died after being rescued. They were still trying to reach the other child, Yavuz said.
More than 5,500 rescuers from different agencies and cities worked together to reach survivors, at times
hushing the crowds to listen into the rubble with sensitive headphones and crawling through the cracks. A 65-year-old man was saved 26 hours after the quake. Rescue work continued in nine buildings.
Earlier Saturday, search-and-rescue teams lifted teenager Inci Okan out of the rubble of a devastated eight-floor apartment building.
Some 103 people have been rescued since the earthquake, Erdogan said. It was unclear how many more people were trapped under buildings that were leveled.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, or AFAD, said 885 people were injured in Izmir and three other provinces. The health minister said eight people were being treated in intensive care, with three of them in critical condition.
Two teenagers were killed on Samos after being struck by a collapsing wall. At least 19 people were injured on the island, with two, including a 14-year-old, being airlifted to Athens and seven hospitalized on the island, health authorities said.
The small tsunami that hit the Turkish coast also affected Samos, with seawater flooding streets in the main
harbor town of Vathi.
The earthquake was centered in the Aegean northeast of Samos. AFAD said it measured 6.6. and hit at a depth of some 10 miles.
It was felt across the eastern Greek islands and as far as Athens and in Bulgaria. In Turkey, it shook the regions of Aegean and Marmara, including Istanbul.
Turkey is crossed by fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. In 1999, two powerful quakes killed some 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey. Earthquakes are frequent in Greece as well.
Turkey’s president said the government would aid victims who lost their homes with temporary housing.
In a show of solidarity rare in recent months of tense bilateral relations, Greek and Turkish government officials issued mutual messages of solidarity, and the leaders of Greece and Turkey held a telephone conversation.
“I thank President Erdogan for his positive response to my call,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Saturday before traveling to Samos, where he visited the families of the teenagers who were killed.