Interior Minister
Rescue workers were continuing to search for people buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings in Elazig province and neighboring Malatya, Health Minister
Emergency workers and security forces distributed tents, beds and blankets as overnight temperatures dropped below freezing in the affected areas. Mosques, schools, sports halls and student dormitories were opened for hundreds who left their homes after the quake.
“The earthquake was very severe, we desperately ran out (of our home),”
The quake hit Friday at
AFAD said it was followed by 228 aftershocks, the strongest with magnitudes 5.4 and 5.1.
At least five buildings in Sivrice and 25 in Malatya province were destroyed, said Environment and Urbanization Minister
Soylu said 18 people were killed in Elazig and four in Malatya. Some 1,030 people were hurt. Speaking at the same news conference, Koca said 34 people remain in intensive care.
Television footage showed emergency workers removing two people from the wreckage of a collapsed building in the town of Gezin. Another person was saved in the city of Elazig, the provincial capital, and two more from a house in Doganyol, Malatya.
A prison in Adiyaman, 110 kilometers (70 miles) southwest of the epicenter, was evacuated after being damaged in the quake.
AFAD said 28 rescue teams had been working around the clock. More than 2,600 personnel from 39 of Turkey’s 81 provinces were sent to the disaster site.
“Our biggest hope is that the death toll does not rise,”
Communication companies announced free telephone and internet services for residents in the quake-hit region, while
Soylu said emergency work was proceeding under the threat of aftershocks.
Turkish President
Neighboring
Elazig is some 565 kilometers (350 miles) east of the Turkish capital,
A magnitude 6 earthquake killed 51 people in Elazig in 2010.
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