ANKARA: Hundreds of rescuers hunted for survivors Thursday after an earthquake in eastern Turkey killed eight people, toppled buildings and sowed panic less than three weeks after a massive deadly quake in the same area.
More than 800 rescue personnel rushed to the area overnight, with mechanical diggers clawing through rubble after the 5.6 magnitude quake struck near the city of Van, sending two hotels crashing down along with two dozen mostly empty buildings.
At least 27 people were pulled out alive, including two members of a Japanese humanitarian association who had come to the area to help after a 7.2 magnitude quake struck on October 23, killing more than 600 people and injuring more than 4,150.
But one of the Japanese men later died of his injuries, according to the Anatolia news agency, bringing the death toll from the latest quake to eight.
It was not clear how many people remained trapped under the rubble.
"When I came out there was nothing but a cloud of smoke everywhere," said Recep Ozhan, a receptionist at one of the two collapsed hotels, one of them a six-storey building in Van city centre that housed mostly journalists and teams from the Turkish Red Crescent.
"There were 32 clients registered at the hotel yesterday, but I don’t know how many were inside the building… I don’t know if anyone was able to get out besides me," he said.
Turkish authorities, heavily criticized at home for a sluggish response to the October quake, said they rushed nine planes carrying almost 300 rescuers to the region overnight along with 50 ambulances and 250 medical personnel.
"What is comforting is that 23 out of 25 buildings (that collapsed) were already empty," Vice Prime Minister Besir Atalay told journalists as he toured the area.
"There were people only in the two hotels and that is where the work is currently going on," Anatolia quoted him as saying.
He declined to say how many people had been staying at the two hotels.
"There are contradictory figures," Atalay said. "The hotel owners gave us one set of figures, but security cameras showed that a number of people had left" the buildings.
As rescuers picked through the rubble on the ground, 23 planes and eight medical helicopters were ferrying materiel and personnel to and from the area, where snow is forecast Friday.
Wednesday’s quake occurred at 1923 GMT, with the epicenter in the Edremit district, some 15 kilometers (nine miles) from Van province, according to the Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory. The USGS put the magnitude at 5.6, after having earlier put it at 5.7.
The US Geological Survey said the epicenter was 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of Van, with its depth given as five kilometers (three miles).
Experts told Turkish television stations that a moderate quake of 5.6 magnitude would not normally cause major damage but said that the buildings that collapsed had been weakened by the October disaster.
In the October quake, Turkey accepted help from dozens of countries, including Israel and Armenia, both states with which it has frosty relations.
That tremor destroyed many homes in the Van province near Iran, including more than 5,000 in the regional capital of Van, provoking claims that building standards had been flouted.
Many survivors were forced to camp out in tents or makeshift shelters, fearing further building collapses with rain and snow adding to their misery.
Turkey is earthquake-prone due to being crossed by several fault lines.
In 1999, two strong quakes in the heavily-populated and industrialized regions of northwest Turkey left some 20,000 people dead.
