The death toll from a powerful earthquake in eastern Turkey rose into the hundreds on Monday, as rescue teams worked a second night to extract survivors, and residents fearful of aftershocks fought for tents to shelter their families.
As of late Monday, 279 people had been confirmed dead and 1,300 injured after nearly a thousand buildings either collapsed or were severely damaged in Sunday's quake, according to Turkey's emergency agency, AFAD. Officials said the number of dead was certain to climb.
The most-damaged areas were the cities of Van and Ercis and nearby villages in the region near the Iran border. Earthquake teams in Ercis, the worst-hit town, said the effort was one of the most organized responses the country has seen. Turkey declined offers of international help—including from estranged ally Israel—other than from fellow Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan.
Along the main thoroughfare of Ercis, a town of some 80,000 people, every third or fourth apartment building had collapsed into a mass of concrete from the 7.2-magnitude quake, which struck at 1:41 p.m. Sunday.
Opposite each building, scores of relatives waited to see whether rescuers were getting to the apartments of their loved ones.
Red-eyed and dazed, 18-year-old Onur Buyukaslan watched rescuers pick at the rubble of his family's apartment block. His mother, sister and two brothers, ages 2, 11 and 13, were inside when it fell.
"I was outside with my father when the earthquake came. In five seconds it collapsed," he said. He hadn't moved since the night before, he said. He looked confused when asked how long he would stay.
"They've only taken dead people out so far," he said.
Two ruins down, Tevfik Baranes was waiting and hoping for his 35-year-old sister, Nurten. Eight survivors and two dead had been pulled from the rubble of the 24-apartment building so far, he said. Now they were getting to the second floor, where his sister stayed home while the rest of the family went out Sunday, he said. It wasn't clear how he was able to tell where the second floor was.
"They say there are 30 people still inside," Mr. Baranes said. A woman sitting on the wall behind him swooned and fainted. Her mother was in the rubble.
There were happier stories. Rescuers pulled 11 survivors out of buildings in the morning, including one woman shown on TV trapped in a collapsed restaurant. Her fiancé had brought rescuers and began the digging himself after he reached her on her cell phone, according to the report on NTV television.
Most stories ended less well. Rescuers told of how they pulled the body of a woman from under a door, still clutching her 2½-year-old child.
For many residents of this agricultural and mainly Kurdish region, however, concerns were already shifting to how to live as winter approaches. Few were willing to move back inside even sound-looking buildings; aftershocks could still be felt Monday evening, and could continue for days or weeks, according to Turkish officials.
As relief trucks brought tents to Ercis, hundreds of men tried to climb aboard them at the town's entrance to secure shelter. Seit Yunisek, a 42-year-old day laborer, lay on top of one of the large canvas tent bags, clinging on as three burly men tried to pull him off. When they gave up, he dragged his tent across the road, panting from the struggle.
"I have 12 children," he said in explanation. He added that the family's house had collapsed and they needed shelter.
Most buildings in the city center showed cracking, sidewalks were blocked by fallen masonry and, at nightfall, apartment blocks remained dark. Families stayed in tents and huddled around fires.
"On the outside it looks fine, but inside all the interior walls collapsed," said Ertugrul Ozbey, a 33-year-old PVC-window salesman, pointing at his two-story home. It was a common story even from owners in an upscale new development in Van. Mr. Ozbey's family and two others, 18 people together, were sharing a tent outdoors.
Like most people in the area, Mr. Ozbey had no earthquake insurance on his property, in a country that sits atop two major earthquake faults.
He laughed off the idea that he could fix his property so it would be fit to live in again. He expected to live in the tent for at least the next month, "until the government helps us out," he said.
According to AFAD, 7,000 tents and 3,000 rescue personnel had been sent to the area. "We learned a lot from 1999," said Ozgur Monkul, planning officer for Akut, a Turkish non-government rescue organization, referring to an earthquake near Istanbul that left at least 17,000 people dead. He predicted that the rescue operation would be over within two to three days.
Yet the rescuers and medical staff still seemed overwhelmed. The courtyard of Ercis's state hospital was littered with surgical gloves and other medical detritus, after more than 800 people were treated outdoors.Even the banks of waiting-room chairs had been ripped out and brought into the open.
"It was terrible, everyone was panicking," said the hospital's deputy manager, Ibrahim Denizer, who had been on site through the night and was packing the last of equipment to go to the local stadium, where the doctors had set up mobile units in an area safe from aftershocks.
"I don't even know where my kids are," he said.
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