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BAYRAKLI, Turkey: Rescuers dug through heavy concrete blocks with their bare hands on Saturday (October 31) in a desperate search for survivors of a powerful earthquake that ripped through buildings in Greece and Turkey, killing at least 30 people.
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake killed 28 people and injured nearly 900 in Turkey after hitting on Friday afternoon near the city of Seferihisar on the west coast of Izmir province.
It also killed two teenagers on its way home from school in Greece, caused a mini-tsunami on the Aegean island of Samos and a storm surge that turned streets into rushing rivers in a Turkish coastal city.
Sense in both Istanbul and Athens, it also created a diplomatic opening for the two historic rivals, with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis making a strange call to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to offer his condolences and support.
Turkish authorities recorded nearly 600 aftershocks, dozens of them larger than 4.0, complicating the search for those believed to be still breathing under mountains of concrete rubble.
Rescue teams search for survivors in a collapsed building after a powerful earthquake struck the western coast of Turkey and parts of Greece in Izmir in the early hours of October 31, 2020 (Photo: AFP / Ozan Kose).
HOSPITAL PATIENTS ON THE STREET
Much of the damage was in the Turkish Aegean Sea resort town of Izmir, which has three million people and is lined with high-rise apartment buildings.
Parts of entire apartments, including toys, pillows and broken appliances, were spilled onto the streets, where survivors wept, many too shocked to speak.
Aerial images showed whole apples turned to rubble.
“I thought: Is it going to end? It felt like 10 minutes, like it was never going to end,” said Gokhan Kan, a 32-year-old messenger.
“I was terrified not for myself at the time, but for my family, my wife and my four-year-old son.”
Izmir Mayor Tunc Soyer told CNN Turk that 20 buildings had collapsed, and officials focused their rescue efforts on 17 of them.
The scenes of devastation suggested that the death toll could rise.
An Izmir hospital took some of its patients, still tied to their beds and connected to leaks, onto the street as a precaution.
Turkey’s religious affairs directorate opened its mosques to help house some of those made homeless by the disaster.
Rescuers, with the help of a sniffer dog, search for survivors in the rubble of a collapsed building after a powerful earthquake struck the western coast of Turkey and parts of Greece in Izmir in the early hours of October 31. 2020 (Photo: AFP). / Ozan Kose)
“REMAIN CALM”
Images on social media showed water running through the streets of one of the cities near Izmir due to an apparent storm surge.
Thick plumes of white smoke rose over various parts of the city where large buildings had collapsed.
Rescuers, aided by residents and sniffer dogs, used chainsaws to try to cut their way through the rubble of a destroyed seven-story building.
Elsewhere, Agriculture Minister Bekir Pakdemirli managed to establish contact by mobile phone with a girl buried under the rubble.
“We ask you to remain calm,” he told her in televised images. “We will try to lift the concrete block and get to you.”
NTV television said up to six people were trapped at the site, including the girl’s cousin.
The region’s governor said 70 people had been taken alive Friday night, although it is unknown how many more were missing by sunset.
Rescuers pitched tents in a small park away from cracked and damaged buildings for families to spend the night in safety and relative warmth.
“Because we live in Izmir, we have quite a warm climate, we can survive today, we can survive tomorrow,” said Cemalettin Enginyurt, a retired soldier. “But we cannot think of anything in the long term, we are helpless.”
“EARTHQUAKE DIPLOMACY”
On the Greek island of Samos, near the epicenter of the earthquake, people ran into the streets in panic.
“It was chaos,” said Deputy Mayor Giorgos Dionysiou. “We have never experienced anything like this.”
The Greek civil protection agency told Samos residents in a text message to “stay outdoors and away from buildings.”
Greece and Turkey are located in one of the most active earthquake zones in the world.
The two neighbors also suffer from historically poor relations despite being members of the NATO military alliance.
But the earthquake saw an outbreak of what experts immediately called “earthquake diplomacy,” with calls exchanged by their foreign ministers and then hours later the Greek prime minister and Erdogan.
“Whatever our differences, these are times when our people need to be united,” Mitsotakis said on Twitter.
“Thank you, Prime Minister,” Erdogan tweeted in response. “That two neighbors show solidarity in difficult times is more valuable than many things in life.”
The US State Department said Washington was “encouraged” by the newfound cooperation.
France, whose President Emmanuel Macron has clashed repeatedly with Erdogan last year, said it stands in “full solidarity” with the two countries.
In 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 people, including 1,000 in Istanbul.
In Greece, the latest deadly earthquake killed two people on the island of Kos, near Samos, in July 2017.
