Search and rescue teams search for victims in the rubble of a collapsed building in Izmir.
Bayrakl, Turkey:
Rescuers searched eight buildings in Izmir on Sunday, despite losing hope for survivors, as the toll from a powerful magnitude earthquake that hit western Turkey rose to 49.
The 7.0-magnitude quake also injured 896 people in Turkey, the Turkish emergency authority AFAD said after striking Friday afternoon near the west coast town of Seferihisar in Izmir province.
More than 200 people were in the hospital, AFAD said, and rescuers were still searching eight buildings in Izmir.
On the night, 33 hours after the earthquake, a 55-year-old man named by the official Anadolu news agency as Ahmet was pulled out from under the rubble to onlookers’ applause and taken to hospital.
The hardest hit Turkish city was Bayrakli, where distraught families in thick blankets spent a second night in tents. Others watched nervously as rescuers sorted through the debris for a second day.
Some have privately expressed concern that their hope is slowly waning over the hours.
But a worker at the site of a collapsed building, who declined to be named, told AFP he believed at least 10 people could still be under the rubble.
Nearly 6,000 rescuers have worked all day and night since Friday, with mechanical excavators helping them remove concrete blocks.
Periodically, the rescue work was halted and everyone remained silent to listen for any indication of someone trapped in the rubble.
Thousands of tents have been pitched in areas around collapsed buildings since authorities warned residents to avoid returning home.
Turkey reported more than 800 aftershocks after the quake, including 40 of magnitude greater than four.
Turkey suffered the deadliest earthquakes of 2020, Turkish website HaberTurk noted. Besides this latest disaster, an earthquake in January killed more than 40 people in the eastern provinces of Elazig and Malatya.
Two teenagers on their way home from school were also killed in Greece as the earthquake caused a mini-tsunami on the Greek island of Samos and a rush of seawater that transformed the streets in rivers in a Turkish city.
Friday’s earthquake was so powerful it was felt as far away as Istanbul and Athens. The disaster prompted Greece and Turkey to put aside their differences and work together to help those affected.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
