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Three Indonesians escape devastating Turkish quake
In waiting: A man waits for his relative to be saved after an earthquake in Elazig, eastern Turkey, on Saturday
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n waiting: A man waits for his relative to be saved after an earthquake in Elazig, eastern Turkey, on Saturday. Rescue workers raced against time to find survivors under the rubble after a powerful earthquake claimed 22 lives and left more than 1,200 injured in eastern Turkey. The magnitude 6.8 quake struck in the evening of Friday, with its epicenter in the small lakeside town of Sivrice in Elazig province, and was felt across neighboring countries. (AFP/Bulent Kilic)
Three Indonesians have escaped the devastation of a powerful earthquake that shook Turkey’s eastern frontier over the weekend, the Indonesian Embassy in Ankara confirmed, as rescuers continued to pull out dozens of people from under the rubble while the death toll climbed to 35.
Rescuers operating in subzero temperatures used drills, mechanical diggers and their bare hands to continue the search for survivors at three sites in Elazig province, where the magnitude-6.8 quake struck on Friday evening.
It killed 31 people there and four in the neighboring province of Malatya and was followed by more than 700 aftershocks, Turkey’s disaster and emergency authority AFAD said on Sunday. More than 1,600 sustained injuries, Reuters reports.
The embassy’s citizen protections team had identified one Indonesian student and two other citizens married to Turkish locals who reside in the affected region, ambassador Lalu Muhammad Iqbal said in a statement, confirming their safety.
“The embassy managed to make contact with one of them and was informed that the three of them are safe,” Iqbal said in a statement issued late Saturday.
He said the embassy would coordinate with local authorities to oversee the situation developing on the ground and urged citizens who are in need of assistance to contact the mission through its emergency hotline at +905321352298.
According to official embassy figures, some 3,300 Indonesians live and work in Turkey. Most are university students and spa therapists who work in the country’s famous tourism industry.
No other reports of Indonesians affected by the natural disaster have emerged.
Broadcast footage showed a 35-year-old woman and her infant daughter emerging from rubble in the Mustafa Pasa district of Elazig, some 550 kilometers east of the capital Ankara.
Rescuers who heard their screams took several hours to reach them in temperatures as low as minus 4 degrees Celsius, state media said. The woman's husband was among those who died.
A dozen people bundled up in colorful blankets crouched around a makeshift fire in eastern Turkey. It was an icy night in Elazig and Esra Kasapoglu shivered, but she said: "It's out of the question to return home."
A magnitude-5.1 aftershock on Saturday night heightened residents' fears, with thousands rushing into the streets, shouting "Earthquake! Earthquake!"
There have been more than 500 aftershocks with magnitudes ranging between 1.0 and 5.1, according to AFAD following Friday's quake.
"Our building is old and there are small cracks. God knows if it will survive in the event of another earthquake. We'll stay here all night," Kasapoglu said as quoted by AFP.
"Our psychology has taken a hit. Earlier, my son ran out of the house shouting when a jacket fell off the coat rack.
"When I am at home, I watch the chandelier every minute to see if it does not swing," she added.
According to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, more than 15,000 people are being accommodated in gymnasiums and schools, while more than 5,000 tents have been set up in the city to house displaced residents.
AFAD said search and rescue operations were still underway at three different sites in Elazig.
Other provinces sent thousands of emergency workers to support rescue efforts, which were also supplemented by hundreds of volunteers, officials said. Tents, beds and blankets were provided to shelter those displaced by the quake.
AFAD urged residents not to return to damaged buildings because of the potential risk of collapse. It said officials had identified 645 heavily damaged and 76 collapsed buildings in the two provinces.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said steel-framed houses would be rapidly built in the region to provide housing for displaced residents. Speaking on Saturday during a visit to Elazig and Malatya, he called the quake a test for Turkey.
The country has a history of powerful earthquakes. More than 17,000 people were killed in August 1999 when a magnitude-7.6 quake struck Izmit, a city southeast of Istanbul.
In 2011, a quake in the eastern city of Van killed more than 500.
Drawing a lesson from earthquakes that regularly strike the Elazig region, Ismail Karacan and his wife constructed a prefabricated building five years ago in the middle of an orchard they own on the outskirts of the city.
Such a building has light walls and roof, which lessened the risk of individuals inside being seriously hurt if it collapsed.
"I think we'll stay there at least a week," he told AFP.
