Quake Shakes Eastern Turkey Eds: CORRECTS location to eastern Turkey; ADDS details
(APW_ENG_19951205.1159)
1) An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.6 shook eastern Turkey Tuesday night, causing damages and injuries.
2) The quake hit the region twice at 8:51 (1851 GMT), causing injuries and damage in the eastern Anatolian town of Pulumur, Recep Yazicioglu, governor of Erzincan, told HBB television. Details were not available.
3) Tunceli governor Atil Uzelgun said 5 buildings had been damaged in Pulumur and Nazimiye, the Anatolia news agency reported.
4) Uzelgun said tents were being distributed to people who decided to spend the night outside, fearing further tremors.
5) The epicenter was halfway between Tunceli and Bingol, 850 kilometers (530 miles) southwest of the capital Ankara, Istanbul's Kandilli observatory said.
6) The area was shaken by three more moderate tremors after the initial quake, according to the Ataturk University observatory in Erzurum. The quakes were felt in the provinces of Tunceli, Bingol, Erzurum, Erzincan, Mus and Elazig, the observatory added.
7) Ismail Akgul, a spokesman at the Interior Ministry in Ankara told The Associated Press they were unable to contact the areas hit worst.
8) A strong earthquake with a 6.0 magnitude killed 90 people in October in Dinar in western Turkey.
9) Turkey's southeastern and entire eastern region sit on the Anatolian fault.


Moderate Earthquake Shakes Eastern Turkey
(APW_ENG_19960918.0085)
1) An earthquake measuring 5 shook the eastern Turkish cities of Erzurum and Bingol on Wednesday morning. No damage or casualties were reported.
2) The epicenter of the quake, which struck 8:11 a.m. (0511 GMT), was 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Erzurum and 900 kilometers (540 miles) east of the capital Ankara, according to the Ataturk University's seismology center.
3) Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean coastal areas and eastern region sit atop an earthquake-prone area known as the Anatolian fault.
4) A magnitude-5 quake can cause damage to homes.


Strong quake kills at least 46 in Turkey; scores of children trapped in collapsed school dormitory
(APW_ENG_20030501.0058)
1) A strong earthquake killed at least 46 people in southeastern Turkey and toppled a school dormitory, trapping more than 100 students under debris, officials said.
2) Public Works and Housing Minister Zeki Ergezen said the estimated death toll stood at 150 and private television NTV reported that 105 bodies had already reached the city's morgue. The report could not be independently confirmed.
3) Crews were working to rescue up to 140 primary and middle school students still buried under the four-story dormitory that completely collapsed, said Minister Ali Coskun from Bingol.
4) Coskun said at least 55 children had so far been rescued from the rubble.
5) The magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck the region around 3:27 a.m. (0027 GMT) Thursday and was centered just outside Bingol, the Kandilli seismology center in Istanbul said.
6) Coskun said 46 people had so far been confirmed dead. Bingol Mayor Feyzullah Karaaslan said the toll was expected to rise.
7) ``As the hours go by, the news from Bingol gets more sad. We estimate the death toll to be around 150, there are about 300 injured,'' he said, adding that soldiers were on their way from the capital Ankara to help with the rescue operations.
8) Civil defense and mountaineers with earthquake-rescue experience were also on their way to Bingol, which is 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Ankara.
9) At least 25 buildings and a bridge collapsed in the center of Bingol, a city of 250,000 inhabitants, the mayor said.
10) Rescue officials were still unable to reach many villages in the area, officials said.
11) Soldiers, rescue workers and ordinary citizens worked their way through the debris to try to rescue students still believed to be alive from the school's dormitory. The Anatolia news agency said voices of the trapped children could be heard from under the debris, while soldiers tried to prevent hundreds of desperate relatives from approaching the collapsed building.
12) Eleven-year-old Mustafa Gunala said he was saved by the school's janitor who guided him and a group of students out of the rubble.
13) ``I didn't understand what happened. I saw the ceiling coming toward me,'' Gunala told Anatolia.
14) Meanwhile parents questioned the quality of the school's construction.
15) ``The stable I built did not collapse, but the school did,'' Gunala said.
16) State television TRT broadcast footage of a soldier carrying a boy, his torso naked, out from the school's wreckage, amid cheers from onlookers.
17) The boy could be heard shouting ``baba!'' or father in Turkish.
18) ``May God save us from the worse,'' said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a news conference in Ankara. ``My hope is that the we end the rescue efforts in a happy way and we don't come across a sad outcome regarding our young ones.''
19) Doctors at Bingol's state hospital appealed for help to deal with the crisis.
20) ``We need every kind of help,'' said Ilhan Cokabay, chief doctor at the hospital. ``Medical supplies, people, whatever.''
21) The town of Cimenli was one of the hardest hit.
22) ``Everything is destroyed. There are no buildings standing,'' Nihat Bartamay, who was helping the rescue effort in Cimenli, told private television NTV. He pulled 13 bodies out of several collapsed homes, he said.
23) The temblor also was felt in the nearby provinces of Erzincan, Tunceli, Bingol, Erzurum, Kayseri and Sivas.
24) More than 50 aftershocks struck the area, including one with a magnitude 5.
25) Gulay Barbarasoglu, head of the Istanbul observatory, said the quake lasted 17 seconds.
26) The earthquake damaged power and telephone lines in the area and cut off electricity. Mobile phone service also appeared to be out in Bingol.
27) A magnitude-6 quake can cause severe damage.
28) Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which lies on the active North Anatolian fault. A 1971 quake in Bingol killed 900 people.
29) Ruptures in the fault caused two quakes in August 1999 that killed 18,000 people and devastated large parts of northwestern Turkey. ea-sf-ht


Rescuers dig to find close to 100 children trapped in collapsed dormitory after strong quake kills nearly 100 in Turkey
(APW_ENG_20030501.0438)
1) Rescuers dug through huge slabs of concrete and tangled steel in the remains of a collapsed four-story school dormitory where about 100 children were trapped since a strong quake struck Turkey's impoverished east Thursday killing nearly 100.
2) Hundreds of Kurdish women prayed and wailed as they waited for news of their children buried under the remains of the building that officials and parents described as poorly built.
3) Many charged that no lessons were learned from past earthquakes, with shoddy buildings without reinforcements allowed to stand in quake-prone regions.
4) ``This building is made out of dirt,'' said Remzi Sonmez standing in front of the collapsed dormatory where his 8-year-old son Ilhami was trapped. ``If they had spent more money it would not have happened. Everyone is going to die, but this shouldn't be because someone is using cheap material on our children's school.''
5) The dormatory of the co-educational boarding school collapsed when the magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck around 3:27 a.m. (0027 GMT) Thursday. The quake was centered just outside the city of Bingol, 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Ankara.
6) The students, aged 7 to 16, were asleep when the tremor hit. By Thursday evening, 72 children were rescued, and rescue teams pulled out the bodies of 12 of children and one teacher. Up to 90 children were still unaccounted for.
7) Soldiers, rescuers and locals lifted huge concrete slabs with cranes and jackhammers to try to save survivors. Some just used their bare hands.
8) Aid teams were trying to pull out eight other children whom they had located and given water to. One of them had crushed feet but the others were in good condition, a rescue worker said.
9) Husnu Genc, saved after spending 16 hours in the rubble, said two of his friends were still alive in the debris.
10) The four-story building had sandwiched into two floors after the collapse. Steel bunk beds and steel closets helped hold up some of the walls of the school, saving many lives, rescuers said.
11) Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who rushed to the region Thursday, said nearly 100 people were killed. He said the government would investigate those responsible for the building's construction.
12) ``The guilty will be prosecuted,'' he said.
13) Some Cabinet ministers said politicians had to accept part of the responsibility for the building's collapse.
14) ``We are responsible of the deaths and we need to take measures,'' Culture Minister Erkan Mumcu said. ``(Earthquakes) happen all around the world... but no country in the world loses as many people to quakes as Turkey.''
15) ``Our biggest mistake is that we have a very bad memory. We forget disasters easily,'' said Guldal Aksit, the minister responsible for family affairs. Thousands of poorly built buildings collapsed when two massive earthquakes struck western Turkey in 1999, killing some 18,000 people.
16) In a sign that some of the parents were giving up hope, Cevriye Bartir, the mother of missing 15-year-old Sinan, sat on the step of a fire truck and sang a Kurdish mourning song.
17) ``My dead son, let me be sacrificed instead,'' she sobbed.
18) Other parents prayed and screamed. Relatives rushed toward soldiers every time a rescued boy was carried out on a stretcher to check if their children had been saved.
19) Many students were being treated for their injuries on mattresses laid out near the flattened building.
20) Most of the students were sons of poor farmers from surrounding villages that don't have schools and are difficult of access.
21) Naim Gencgul, a 15-year-old boy, was pulled out of the rubble with a broken arm.
22) ``The whole building was on top of me. We all started screaming,'' he said.
23) In the center of Bingol, a city of 250,000 inhabitants, at least 25 buildings and a bridge collapsed. Bingol is a largely rural poor area in the predominantly Kurdish east and southeast that suffered for years from the fierce fighting between the Turkish army and Kurdish autonomy-seeking rebels.
24) The earthquake damaged power and telephone lines in the area. More than 200 aftershocks hit the region.
25) Doctors at Bingol's state hospital appealed for help to deal with the crisis. The hospital was seriously damaged in the quake and scores of injured were being treated outside.
26) The mayor said the city also needed more large tents. The Red Crescent sent 2,100 tents, 13,000 blankets, food as well as mobile kitchens, generators, ambulances. Soldiers, emergency workers and mountaineers with rescue experience were also headed to the area.
27) The 17-second temblor was felt in the nearby provinces of Erzincan, Tunceli, Erzurum, Kayseri and Sivas.
28) Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which lies on the active North Anatolian fault. A 1971 quake in Bingol killed 900 people. sf-ht


Rescuers work against time searching for children trapped by deadly Turkish earthquake
(APW_ENG_20030502.0094)
1) Noisy equipment fell silent as searchers listened Friday for any sign of life under a flattened school dormitory where about 70 children remained trapped since a strong earthquake rocked eastern Turkey.
2) Working against time, the rescuers hoped to reach them alive and one boy was rescued Friday morning after spending more than 30 hours under the rubble.
3) Rescuers applauded as Enef Gunce, apparently with only slight injuries, was carried down on a stretcher and quickly put in ambulance.
4) But hopes were beginning to fade as the bodies of 40 children were found.
5) ``I have been sitting here since yesterday morning,'' said Gazal Gunalan, whose 15-year-old son Mehmet was buried under the rubble. ``At the beginning I was expecting him to come out alive ... now I'm waiting for his body.''
6) Meanwhile, tensions rose in Bingol where police fired shots with automatic M-16s in the air to disperse a crowd of up to 1,000 people protesting the lack of tents and other aid.
7) Several people were injured in the protest after a police van sped through the crowd. Some were injured by flying stones, private televisions CNN-Turk and NTV reported.
8) Hundreds of aftershocks have hit the region since the initial 17-second temblor, leaving thousands who refuse to enter their homes stranded in the streets.
9) The Turkish Red Crescent has sent 3,700 tents and 13,000 blankets to the region, but Sevket Ozbay, an official at the emergency desk said 10,000 more tents were needed, along with food and drinking water.
10) The quake's epicenter was just outside the nearby city of Bingol, 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Ankara. Bingol is a rural, poor area in the predominantly Kurdish southeast that suffered years of fierce fighting between the Turkish army and Kurdish autonomy-seeking rebels. The rebel war left a deep distrust between Kurds and Turkish security forces.
11) Bingol's governor Huseyin Avni Cos said the official toll on Friday stood at 105. About 1,000 people were injured in the quake.
12) At the school, rescuers found five children alive and 12 dead overnight.
13) Major Oguz Tozak, in charge of a rescue team at the school, said he feared up to two-thirds of the students still trapped may be dead.
14) ``I saw an entire dormitory ward squashed under the ceiling with at least eight children crushed to death inside,'' said rescuer Semsettin Sayan Friday morning.
15) Intermittently, rescuers turned off generators and lights to scan the rubble with sensitive microphones to detect any sounds. Sniffer dogs climbed on the debris hunting for survivors.
16) Rescuers dug a passage from the basement through the rubble to the flattened third floor where two children were believed to be alive. But no one was found there.
17) Rescue workers used children's blankets to carry debris from the collapsed building and notebooks and school books were scattered across the site.
18) The 198 students in the dorm, ages 7 to 16, were asleep when the magnitude 6.4 quake struck early Thursday morning and collapsed the Celtiksuyu boarding school. So far, 90 were rescued alive from the rubble, leaving about 70 still unaccounted for.
19) Hundreds of people, most of them relatives of the missing students, kept vigil near the rubble, wailing and praying under the floodlights used to keep up the search through the night.
20) The building's collapse again focused attention on poor construction methods which have been blamed for heavy death tolls in previous quakes in Turkey.
21) Nihat Ozdemir head of the Turkish Contractors' Union said contractors were not being inspected carefully, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to prosecute those responsible for shoddy construction.
22) ``They stole these children's lives,'' headlined daily Milliyet, reporting that the material used to built the school was outdated.
23) The primary and middle boarding school was built in 1999 mainly for the children of farmers from surrounding villages that have no schools and poor transportation services. It also represented the hope for a better future for the children of poor Kurds, who are often illiterate.
24) ``My son always said 'I don't want to stay uneducated like you Dad. I want a different life,''' said Nihat Bezekci, whose 11-year-old son Ahmet was still trapped in the building. ``If I had been able, I wish I had sent him to a better school, not here.''
25) Bezekci said he tried to keep his hopes up all night.
26) ``But now my hopes have totally collapsed. I suppose God had written his destiny,'' said the Kurdish farmer.
27) Much of the country sits atop the active North Anatolian fault and tremors are frequent. A 1971 quake in Bingol killed 900 people.
28) jh-ea-ht


Protesters clash over aid as rescuers search for children trapped by deadly Turkish earthquake
(APW_ENG_20030502.0334)
1) Clashes erupted between police and local Kurds over shortages of earthquake relief supplies Friday as rescue workers kept searching for dozens of children in the rubble of a collapsed school dormitory.
2) In a sign that there were few chances of finding survivors at the dormitory, rescuers began using cranes and other heavy equipment to lift the debris.
3) Ahmet Aydin, in charge of the emergency center at the site, said dogs and electronic equipment were no longer picking up any signs of life, but insisted that the rescue mission was continuing. Some relatives tried to block the rescuers from using the cranes.
4) ``This is still a search and rescue operation,'' Aydin said.
5) By midday Friday, 32 students were still missing after 117 were rescued and 49 found dead, rescue officials said. The children, aged 7 to 16, were mostly sons of poor Kurdish farmers.
6) Thousands were left homeless and angry demonstrators protesting the lack of tents, food and water clashed with police in Bingol, the main city hit by the quake.
7) Policemen fired into the air with automatic rifles after hundreds of protesters attacked police cars and anti-riot vehicles. Some protesters ripped large stones from the paved streets and threw them at the governor's building.
8) At least five policemen and three journalists were injured and scores were detained, Bingol governor Huseyin Avni Cos said. An angry crowd kicked and punched several reporters outside the governor's office, accusing them of being biased against them, before soldiers pushed them back.
9) The confirmed death toll from Thursday's quake rose to 115 Friday, according to officials. About 1,000 people were injured.
10) Soldiers took over from police in the streets of Bingol to prevent further clashes since demonstrators were particularly angry at police for firing shots in the air when protesters gathered outside Cos' office demanding his resignation. Several protesters were injured by a speeding police van that drove through the crowd.
11) There is deep distrust between Kurds and security forces in Turkey's east after a 15-year Kurdish rebel war and ensuing government crackdown left 37,000 dead and millions displaced.
12) Cos said Kurdish rebels were taking advantage of the quake to raise tensions, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the clashes were ``acts of serious provocation and exploitation.''
13) Erdogan defended the police's decision to open fire in the air, although he announced that the Bingol chief of police had been fired after the clashes.
14) ``We just came here to get tents. But they started firing on us,'' said protester Ramazan Yararli. A Muslim cleric used his mosque's loudspeaker to appeal for calm, while police told the crowd to wait in front of their homes for aid to be distributed.
15) The Turkish Red Crescent has sent 3,700 tents and 13,000 blankets to the region, but Cos said he hadn't distributed most of them Thursday because he wanted a fair distribution. He said 20,000 more tents were needed. Food and drinking water were also insufficient, officials said.
16) In Celtiksuyu, rescuers continued to dig through the rubble of a boarding school dormitory that collapsed with 198 students inside.
17) One boy, Enef Gunce, was rescued Friday morning after spending more than 30 hours under the debris. Weary rescuers applauded as Gunce, apparently with only slight injuries, was quickly put in an ambulance.
18) But some relatives were beginning to lose hope.
19) ``I have been sitting here since yesterday morning,'' said Gazal Gunalan, whose 15-year-old son Mehmet was buried under the rubble. ``I was expecting him to come out alive ... now I'm waiting for his body.''
20) The quake's epicenter was just outside Bingol, a poor, rural area some 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Ankara.
21) In villages across the area, graves were dug for the students killed in the quake.
22) At a funeral in the village of Karderslerkoyu, farmers screamed as they lifted the white burial shroud that covered the chubby face and blonde hair of 14-year-old Erhan Berk, found dead Friday in the school's debris.
23) The school building's collapse again focused attention on poor construction methods that have been blamed for heavy death tolls in previous quakes in Turkey.
24) Nihat Ozdemir, head of the Turkish Contractors' Union, said contractors were not being inspected carefully, while the prime minister vowed to prosecute those responsible for shoddy construction.
25) Much of the country sits atop the active North Anatolian fault and tremors are frequent. A 1971 quake in Bingol killed 900 people. ea-za/ht


Death toll rises to 176 in Turkish quake
(APW_ENG_20030505.0411)
1) Officials on Monday raised the death toll in last week's 6.4-magnitude quake to 176 and closed down schools in the region for an early summer recess after a dormitory collapsed, killing 83 children.
2) Many parents are reluctant to send their children back to school after Thursday's quake leveled the primary and middle boarding school, trapping 198 students under the rubble. Several other schools were damaged, and officials said boarding schools throughout the country would be inspected.
3) The quake brought down 300 buildings and damaged more than 5,000, said Bingol Governor Huseyin Avni Cos, who announced the new toll. Officials in Bingol said the toll had increased because some families had informed authorities of deaths only recently. About 1,000 were injured.
4) Cos said 7,000 tents had already been handed out to those made homeless by the quake and another 2,600 would be distributed Monday. Hundreds of local Kurds called for Cos' resignation Friday in a violent protest over the lack of tents, food and water. Protesters clashed with police, leaving 19 injured.
5) Cos also said that students in the region of Bingol, the main city hit by the quake, could start their summer vacation a month early, except those in the last year of middle and high school who face an exam in June. Those students will be taught in tents.
6) Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush called his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Necdet Sezer Monday to express condolences.
7) ``The president was particularly saddened by the children that were killed and injured in the earthquake,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. Bush ``let him know that the United States stands ready to help.''
8) The Bingol Bar Association appealed to prosecutors to open an investigation against government officials for failing to prevent the collapse of the school in the town of Celtiksuyu.
9) Officials admit that the building was made with shoddy material, and critics say it was never inspected.
10) Cabinet spokesman Cemil Cicek said Monday the government planned to stiffen laws governing public construction tenders and impose harsher punishments for building code violations to make sure that public buildings are well built.
11) Poor construction was blamed for many of the 18,000 deaths in the 1999 quakes in western Turkey.
12) Much of Turkey lies atop the North Anatolian fault and quakes are frequent.


Three moderate earthquakes shake Turkey; no injuries reported
(APW_ENG_20030521.0158)
1) Two moderate earthquakes shook eastern Turkey and another rattled the northwest Wednesday, the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory said. No injuries or damage were reported.
2) The first two quakes were centered in Bingol province, where a magnitude 6.4 quake earlier this month killed 176 people, including 83 children who were crushed in their school dormitory.
3) The Bingol quakes early Wednesday had preliminary magnitudes of 4.4 and 4.5. Several aftershocks were also reported.
4) At 11:21 a.m. (0821GMT), a quake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.5, also shook the northwestern city of Duzce, the observatory said.
5) Duzce, located 180 kilometers (115 miles) east of Istanbul, was the center of a 7.2-magnitude quake in November 1999 that killed around 900 people.
6) Most of Turkey lies on the active north Anatolian fault, and quakes are frequent.


Moderate quake shakes eastern Turkey; at least six killed
(APW_ENG_20040325.0663)
1) A moderately strong earthquake shook eastern Turkey on Thursday, killing at least six people, including four children, an official said.
2) The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.1, was centered in the town of Cat, in Erzurum province, some 900 kilometers (540 miles) east of Ankara, the capital, the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory said. It occurred at 9:30 p.m. (1830 GMT).
3) Gov. Mustafa Malay told state-run TRT television that a house in a village near the town of Askale collapsed in the temblor, killing four children. Two other people were also killed, the governor later told private NTV television, but gave no details.
4) Malay said another person was injured when the wall of his house collapsed.
5) Worst hit were three villages close to Askale where a number of mud-brick homes had collapsed.
6) NTV television reported that villagers were trying to rescue a woman buried under the rubble of her house in Kucukgecit village.
7) Throughout the province, people rushed out of homes into the streets in panic and some were hospitalized with shock, the governor said. People were too frightened to return to their homes and were planning to spend the night outdoors.
8) People calling for news of loved ones jammed phone lines, Malay said.
9) A bridge was damaged and was closed to heavy vehicles. Power in some villages was cut and some government buildings suffered cracks, he said.
10) The quake was also felt in neighboring provinces.
11) Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which lies atop active fault lines. In 1999, two quakes killed about 18,000 people in northwest Turkey.


Moderate quake shakes central Turkey, no damage or injuries reported
(APW_ENG_20040718.0134)
1) A moderate earthquake shook central Turkey on Sunday. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
2) The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 4.3 and was centered in the town of Ilgaz, in Cankiri province, the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory said. Cankiri is some 150 kilometers (95 miles) northeast of the capital, Ankara, where the quake was also felt.
3) Quakes are frequent in Turkey, much of which lies atop the active North Anatolian fault.
4) On Saturday evening, a magnitude 4.0 temblor rumbled in the rural Bingol province, about 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Ankara. No damage or injuries were reported.
5) Two devastating earthquakes killed about 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey in 1999.


Strong earthquake shakes eastern Turkey, causing damage, injuries
(APW_ENG_20050314.0569)
1) A strong earthquake shook eastern Turkey on Monday, damaging buildings and injuring at least 18 people two days after another quake in the region, authorities said.
2) The earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 was centered in rural Bingol province at struck at 3:55 a.m. (0135 GMT), toppling several buildings that had been badly damaged in Saturday's magnitude 5.7 temblor, officials said.
3) Authorities said there no reports of any deaths, but at least 18 people were injured, including two women who had been trapped in rubble and were rescued and taken to the hospital, the Anatolia news agency reported.
4) "A great deal of destruction is out of question, but we have determined that some animals were killed," Erkan Capar, a senior local official, told the Anatolia news agency, adding some empty village buildings had collapsed. "Our teams have begun combing through villages. So far, there's nothing serious."
5) Anatolia said that more than 450 houses in 24 villages in Bingol were affected, suffering either serious or slight damage.
6) Television footage showed panicked residents huddling around fires outside to keep warm in the snow covered area. Scores of people have been staying in tents since Saturday's quake and authorities were distributing more tents Monday.
7) Helicopters and soldiers also took supplies to quake-hit villages whose roads were blocked _ some by avalanches apparently triggered by the quake, Anatolia said.
8) Bingol is 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Ankara.
9) Saturday's earthquake damaged more than 200 hundred buildings and injured 16 people, according to the prime minister's office.
10) Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which lies atop active fault lines. Two massive quakes killed some 18,000 people in 1999.
11) A magnitude 6.4 quake in Bingol killed 177 people in 2003.


Earthquake shakes southeastern Turkey; dozens injured
(APW_ENG_20050606.0829)
1) A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.7 shook southeastern Turkey on Monday, injuring at least 54 people and demolishing homes, officials said.
2) The quake struck near the town of Karliova, in rural Bingol province, some 900 kilometers (560 miles) southeast of Ankara, the Kandilli Observatory said.
3) The quake caused several homes to collapse in nearby villages and at least 54 people were injured, the prime minister's office announced. The temblor damaged at least 63 houses in several villages in neighboring Erzurum province, local officials said.
4) Five of the injured were in serious condition while others were treated in hospital for minor injuries and released, an official at the crisis center in Bingol said.
5) Most of the homes that collapsed had been already damaged in a March earthquake, Bingol Governor Vehbi Avuc said.
6) "We are happy that there were no deaths," Avuc said. "The quake has caused quite a panic and we are trying to provide psychological support."
7) Monday's quake occurred at 10:41 a.m. (0741 GMT). It was also felt in the neighboring provinces of Erzurum, Mus and Tunceli, the Anatolia news agency reported.
8) At least 10 aftershocks, measuring between 2.9 and 3.5, also shook the region, Kandilli said.
9) Officials dispatched 1,000 tents and 2,000 blankets to the area while schools were closed for two-days.
10) In 2003, an earthquake measuring 6.4 collapsed a school dormitory in Bingol province, killing 83 children. The collapse was blamed on poor construction.
11) A magnitude 6.4 quake killed 177 people in Bingol in 1995.
12) Karliova is prone to earthquakes and a temblor of the same magnitude injured 15 people there on March 12.
13) Quakes are frequent in Turkey, much of which lies atop the active North Anatolian fault. Two devastating earthquakes killed about 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey in 1999.


Strong earthquake slams eastern Turkey, kills 51
(APW_ENG_20100308.0755)
1) A strong, pre-dawn earthquake knocked down stone and mud-brick houses, barns and minarets in eastern Turkey on Monday, killing 51 people in five villages, the government said.
2) The earthquake surprised many residents as they slept, crumpling buildings into piles of rubble. Panicked survivors fled into narrow village streets, some climbing out of windows, as nearly 80 aftershocks measuring up to 5.5 and 5.3 magnitude rattled the region.
3) The Kandilli seismology center said the 6.0-magnitude quake hit at 4:32 a.m. (0232 GMT, 9 p.m. EST Sunday) near the village of Basyurt in a remote, sparsely populated area of Elazig province. The region is 340 miles (550 kilometers) east of Ankara, the capital.
4) The U.S. Geological Survey listed the quake at 5.9 magnitude.
5) The government initially put the death toll at 57 but later lowered it to 51 with no explanation. In addition to the deaths, 34 people were being treated for injuries, Turkey's crisis center said.
6) The damage appeared worst in the village of Okcular, where at least 15 of the village's 900 residents were killed, the Elazig governor's office said.
7) As relatives rushed in for news of their loved ones, authorities blocked off the area so ambulances and rescue teams could maneuver up Okcular's narrow, steep roads. Residents lit fires to keep warm in the winter cold, with snow-covered mountains in the background.
8) "The village is totally flattened," village administrator Hasan Demirdag told private NTV television.
9) Resident Ali Riza Ferhat said he was woken up by the jolt.
10) "I tried to get out of the door but it wouldn't open. I came out of the window and started helping my neighbors," he told NTV television. "We removed six bodies."
11) Video footage showed men using shovels and their bare hands to dig two bodies out from under piles of dirt, rubble and concrete blocks that used to be homes. Both bodies were covered in blankets and carried away. One appeared to be a baby or young child.
12) Women in veils gathered near the rescue scenes, some crying.
13) "Everything has been knocked down, there is not a stone in place," said Yadin Apaydin, administrator for the village of Yukari Kanatli, where three people died.
14) Another 15 people were killed in the nearby village of Yukari Demirci, Gov. Muammer Erol said, four each were killed in the villages of Kayalik and Gocmezler and 10 others died after being taken to a hospital in the town of Kovancilar.
15) The temblor also knocked down barns, killing many farm animals. A half-dozen dead cows could be seen partially buried in the dirt near one collapsed home.
16) Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kandilli Observatory's director, Mustafa Erdik, urged residents not to enter any damaged homes, warning they could topple from aftershocks that Erdik said could last for days.
17) Erdogan blamed the region's mud-brick buildings for the many deaths and said the government housing agency will build quake-proof homes in the area. He said ambulance helicopters, prefabricated homes and mobile kitchens were being rushed in, and Turkey's Red Crescent aid group sent tents and blankets.
18) The quake was also felt in the neighboring provinces of Tunceli, Bingol and Diyarbakir, where residents fled to the streets in panic and stayed outdoors. Schools were closed for two days in the region. In Tunceli province, students were sent home after the quake caused a school's walls to crack, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
19) A museum in Elazig displaying artifacts from the Iron-age Kingdom of Urartu was not affected by the quake, and nearby dams were also intact.
20) Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, much of which lies on top of two main fault lines. In 1999, two powerful earthquakes struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people. In 2003, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake killed 177 people in Bingol, including 84 children whose school dormitory collapsed.
21) The Elazig quake followed deadly temblors in Haiti and Chile, but Bernard Doft, the seismologist for the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in Utrecht, said there was no direct connection between the three.
22) "These events are too far apart to be of direct influence to each other," he said.
23) Richard Luckett, a seismologist from the British Geological Survey, said there has not been a spike in global seismic activity.
24) "If there was a big increase in the number of magnitude 6.0s in the past decade we would know it because we would see it in the statistics," Luckett said. "We haven't seen an increase in 7.0s either."
25) He said scientists often see strong quakes but they don't get reported because the damage or death toll is minimal. According to USGS data, the world is hit by about 134 earthquakes a year in the 6.0- to 6.9-magnitude range -- or about two a week.
26) "The point is that earthquakes are common and always have been," he said.