Perilous
Times
Turkey earthquake death toll passes 600
October 31, 2011 - 5:34AM
AFP
Bulldozers have replaced sniffer dogs as search efforts wound down
in quake-hit eastern Turkey and the death toll rose to over 600.
With temperatures dipping to below freezing the biggest problem
now facing survivors in Van province was a lack of tents and
heaters, media reports said.
Health officials in Ercis, which bore the brunt of the
7.2-magnitude quake, warned survivors against drinking tap water
due to fears the supply had been contaminated with sewage, the
Anatolia news agency reported.
Many survivors were still camped out in tents or makeshift
shelters, fearing further building collapses with rain and snow
adding to their misery.
Some whose homes were damaged had tried to find new accommodation
only to discover that unscrupulous landlords had hiked rents.
"People whose houses collapsed started to search for new houses
but there has been a big increase in prices ... this is not
ethical," Salih Ozbek, the head of Van Real Estate Agencies'
Association, told Anatolia.
City Planning Minister Erdogan Bayraktar has said new housing will
be ready in Van city by September next year for people left
homeless by the quake.
In the meantime, Turkey plans to provide temporary, pre-fabricated
shelter units.
Two Israeli planes, carrying five prefabricated housing units
landed in the eastern province of Erzurum early on Sunday, Israeli
embassy official Nizar Amer told AFP. Israel earlier sent five
others.
Turkey has accepted help from dozens of countries, including
Israel and Armenia, both states with which it has frosty
relations.
The United States is the latest country to offer help.
Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay thanked the international
community "for its concern".
More than 4150 people were injured in the quake that shook Van
province near the Iranian border on October 23, the government's
emergency unit said in a statement on its website. The toll on
Sunday rose to 601, it said.
Search and rescue work ended on Saturday in Van city centre, but
emergency crews continued working at two locations in Ercis,
officials said.
Some 231 people have been pulled out alive from the rubble.
The last person to be found alive was 12-year-old Ferhat Tokay,
who was brought out at dawn on Friday after spending 108 hours
trapped under the ruins of a building in Ercis, a town of 75,000.
"It is unlikely, barring some miracle, that anyone else will be
found alive in the rubble in such cold weather," a Turkish doctor
was earlier quoted as saying on CNN-Turk television.