TURKEY: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has lashed at earthquake victims who clashed with police over the state's relief efforts.

Record ID: 217824

  • Title: TURKEY: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has lashed at earthquake victims who clashed with police over the state's relief efforts.
  • Date: 12th November 2011
  • Summary: VAN, TURKEY (NOVEMBER 11, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF RESCUE WORK UNDERWAY
  • Embargoed: 27th November 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey, Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Disasters,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAA7GZKF8U19RB989ASZ6S4M705
  • Story Text: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan lashed out on Friday (November 11) at quake victims who clashed with police over the state's relief efforts.
    Riot police fired tear gas and used batons on Thursday (November 10) to disperse protesters angry at the relief efforts after the second earthquake in eastern Turkey in three weeks killed at least 12 people in the city of Van.
    The prime minister lauded the rescue work.
    "As a result of successful rescue work by our teams, 30 people were rescued injured and the death toll rose to 20 according to the latest figures," Erdogan said.
    He promised swift action.
    "We are doing every effort to be with them. As I said before, we will never leave anyone out during this winter. We are providing everything -- tents, blankets, heaters, food supplies and we will continue to do so."
    But Erdogan had harsh words who protested against the handling of rescue measures.
    "They are not quake survivors. They are provocateurs trying to sabotage the ongoing process, The ministers, governors and security forces who are working there, making all efforts, are now obliged to deal with this (provocations)," Erdogan told a meeting in Turkish capital of Ankara.
    Rescuers found six bodies, including a child's, on Friday as they dug through rubble after the latest earthquake to hit Van, a city in eastern Turkey already suffering from an earlier quake and simmering anger over the authorities' emergency response.
    Though the loss of life in the latest quake was nowhere near the scale of the one on October 23 that killed more than 600, the latest calamity highlighted discontent over a relief operation that has left many families pleading for tents.
    The survivors' desperation has grown with the approach of winter. Snow began falling on Friday in the city of one million, with surrounding mountaintops already capped in white.
    A day earlier, police fired tear gas to disperse some 200 protesters who had chanted for the removal of the state governor, saying there were not enough tents for people too afraid to return to their damaged homes.
    Aftershocks have jolted the area with frightening regularity since the October 23, 7.2 magnitude quake, though experts say Wednesday's tremor represented a new seismic event rather than an aftershock.
    A 5.7 magnitude tremor would not normally inflict much damage, but buildings in the city were weakened by the earlier quake, and some 22 people collapsed.
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