M A I N   N E W S

150 die in Turkey quake

Bingol (Turkey), May 1
A powerful earthquake killed up to 150 persons in a mountainous region of southeastern Turkey early today, demolishing a boarding school and trapping 150 small children under the rubble.

Transport Minister Ali Coskun said 84 persons were confirmed dead and 390 injured in the quake that rocked the region at 3.27 am local time and flattened more than a dozen buildings in Bingol city.

Housing Minister Zeki Ergezen while speaking in capital Ankara, said unconfirmed reports put the estimated death toll as high as 150. “The picture is getting increasingly serious,” he said.

Men search through the debris of houses destroyed in an earthquake in the town of Celtiksuyu, near the southeastern Turkish town of Bingol, on Thursday. — Reuters photo

Rescuers clambering over the demolished concrete primary school dormitory building, where many children slept as the quake struck, said they could hear cries from below the masonry.

Bystanders cheered as rescue workers pulled one dazed boy from the collapsed building and carried him to a nearby ambulance.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who flew to Bingol from Ankara, said: “There are around 150 of our little ones there... May God preserve us from worst.”

Many buildings in the centre of town were completely destroyed by the force of the tremor, which measured 6.4 on the Richter Scale. The minaret of one mosque had toppled.

Women wailed and cried as local soldiers and civilians pounded with pickaxes and mechanised diggers at the rubble of apartment blocks in and around Bingol’s city centre. Reuters