TURKEY: EarthQuake victims spend their third night in tents under freezing temperatures

Record ID: 593317

  • Title: TURKEY: EarthQuake victims spend their third night in tents under freezing temperatures
  • Date: 26th October 2011
  • Summary: ERCIS, TURKEY (OCTOBER 25, 2011) (REUTERS) VIEW OF DAMAGED BUILDING RESCUERS WORKING HEAVY MACHINERY AT SITE BEDS SEEN FROM COLLAPSED WALL OF A STUDENT DORM SMOKE RISING FROM TENT SITE/PEOPLE WALKING AROUND TENTS PEOPLE WARMING UP AROUND FIRE OLD WOMAN WARMING UP QUAKE VICTIMS SITTING AROUND FIRE FIRE (SOUNDBITE) (Turkish) QUAKE VICTIM, UNAL TOPRAK, SAYING "We have no opportunity to warm up in tents. We don't have enough blankets. 10 people lay under one blanket. There are elderly women as well. They are all feeling under the weather. We have kids. There is no organisation for proper aid distribution." COUPLE HUGGING EACH OTHER IN FRONT OF FIRE COOK CUTTING SLICES OF MEET SLICES OF MEET PEOPLE AWAITING FOR DINNER MAN HOLDING BREAD
  • Embargoed: 10th November 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey, Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Disasters
  • Reuters ID: LVA9DE59L75KBVWA1RQJTNLLQLZF
  • Story Text: Thousands of quake victims prepared to spend a third night in freezing temperatures in crowded tents or huddled around fires across makeshift shelter sites erected near the Iranian border on Tuesday night (October 25).
    Quake victims, lodged in a tented site in Ercis complained about freezing temperatures and urging for more blankets as well as heaters to be
    "We have no opportunity to warm up in tents. We don't have enough blankets. 10 people lay under one blanket. There are elderly women as well. They are all feeling under the weather. We have kids. There is no organisation for proper aid distribution," quake victim Unal Toprak said.
    The death toll from Sunday's 7.2-magnitude quake rose to 459, with 1,352 injured, the Disaster and Emergency Administration said.
    The final count was likely to rise further as many people were still missing and 2,262 buildings had collapsed.
    With the government facing criticism over shortages of tents and other relief items, Turkey requested prefabricated housing and tents from more than 30 countries, including Israel, a Foreign Ministry official told Reuters.
    Many victims accused the central government of poor organisation and of being slow in delivering aid to a region inhabited mostly by minority Kurds and home to a separatist insurgency against the Turkish state.
    Quake rescue efforts focused on Ercis, a town of 100,000 that was worst hit, and Van, the provincial capital, have been hampered by power cuts and by more than 500 aftershocks, including one with a magnitude of 5.4 on Tuesday.
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