- Title: TURKEY: 10-STOREY APARTMENT BUILDING COLLAPSES KILLING AT LEAST FIVE PEOPLE
- Date: 3rd February 2004
- Summary: (W1) SELCUKLU, TURKEY (FEBRUARY 03, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. LV/SLV OF THE COLLAPSED BUILDING (4 SHOTS) 0.27 2. SLV DEAD BODY IS TAKEN OUT OF THE BUILDING 0.37 3. CU/LV DRIP APPLIED TO WOUNDED PERSON (2 SHOTS) 0.52 4. SV WOUNDED PERSON IS TAKEN OUT OF THE BUILDING 1.04 5. SV WOUNDED MAN BEING TAKEN TO THE AMBULANCE 1.18 6.
- Embargoed: 18th February 2004 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: SELCUKLU, TURKEY
- Country: Turkey
- Reuters ID: LVA76LD8AAYJC1HIKJN0QOJJGO3M
- Story Text: Apartment collapse in Turkey kills at least
five.
Digging with their bare hands, rescue workers in
central Turkey on Tuesday (February 3) searched for dozens
feared trapped in the rubble of a 10-storey apartment
building which collapsed and killed at least five people.
Temperatures hovered around freezing as rescuers and
panicked relatives scoured the ruins of the building in the
city of Konya, 250 km (155 miles) south of the capital
Ankara.
A two-year-old girl was among the dead. Another body
was pulled out shortly after the building collapsed at
around 8:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) on Monday. Three more were
pulled out overnight.
"Twenty one people have been rescued and three dead so
far. We hope the death toll will not rise quickly,"
Agriculture Minister Sami Guclu told Reuters at the scene.
The cause was not immediately clear. Officials at the
scene blamed shoddy construction, while witnesses said they
heard an explosion before the 36-apartment block came
crashing down.
Hospital officials told Reuters more than 25 people
were being treated, and state-run news agency Anatolian
said some suffered injuries after jumping out of their
windows.
As many as 120 people may have been in the building.
Shops on the ground floor were closed for the Muslim
holiday of Eid al-Adha but many residents had visitors.
Scores of relatives rushed to the site seeking news of
casualties. Rescue workers complained the huge crowds were
making it difficult to listen for the sounds of anyone
buried alive, including a woman who had used her mobile
telephone to call for help.
Rescuers scrambled on top of the pile of concrete
blocks, broken furniture and twisted metal, but large
earth-moving equipment was not being used for fear of
unsettling the mound and crushing any survivors trapped
beneath.
Much of the structure's concrete walls were pulverised
as the building crumbled into a five-metre (16 foot) pile.
Nearby residents said there had been structural
problems at the building and that its engineers had failed
for years to win it official clearance to allow people to
move in.
Civil defence and military units from across Turkey
rushed to Konya to assist in the rescue effort. Local
television stations said the city lacks a standing civil
defence service.
Similar disasters have in the past been blamed on
Turkey's badly enforced building regulations and poor
construction.
A derelict wooden house collapsed in central Istanbul
on Saturday, killing six people, while 10 students died in
June when the dormitory of a Muslim religious college
collapsed.
Earthquakes have also taken a devastating toll in
Turkey, which is criss-crossed with faultlines. Poorly
built structures have been blamed for the high number of
deaths in the quakes, including two massive tremors in 1999
that killed more than 18,000 people in Turkey's
industrialised northwest.
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