44 Killed in Turkish Temblor

At least 44 people were killed and more than 150 others injured Sunday in an earthquake that rocked the province of Afyon in central Turkey, toppling scores of buildings.

The epicenter of the magnitude 6 quake was the town of Bolvadin, about 190 miles southeast of Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, and home to about 40,000 people.

The tremor, which struck at 9:11 a.m. and was followed by nearly 30 aftershocks, was reported to have had the worst impact on the village of Sultandagi, seven miles south of Bolvadin. At least 15 people died in the village, where dozens of homes lay in ruins.

Turkey lies atop a major fault line and is frequently hit by earthquakes. Bolvadin was last struck by an earthquake in 1914. It claimed 400 lives.

On Sunday, rescue workers accompanied by sniffer dogs worked around the clock to pull out at least 11 victims believed to be trapped under the rubble across the disaster zone, while panicked survivors fled in fear of aftershocks.

Other survivors wandered around shaking and dazed, their clothes coated in white dust, in scenes reminiscent of those after the quake that devastated northwestern Turkey in 1999, killing at least 17,000 people.

At that time, rescue workers and aid poured in from around the world, including from Turkey’s longtime rival and neighbor, Greece. On Sunday, Greek authorities offered to send in rescue workers again, in a further sign of steadily improving ties between the two countries.

“We express our solidarity toward the troubled people and government of Turkey, who have again been struck hard by another earthquake,” said Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou after meeting in New York with his Turkish counterpart, Ismail Cem. “We express our deepest condolences to the families of those lost.”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said that Turkey was grateful for the offer but that it was not in need of any outside help at the moment.

Sunday’s tremor was felt in a wide area, stretching across the central Anatolian provinces all the way to Ankara, the capital, which lies about 120 miles northeast of Bolvadin.

In the neighboring province of Konya, one person died of a heart attack and seven people were injured after jumping out of windows and off balconies, the private news channel NTV said.

The quake was also felt on eastern Greek islands near Turkey’s coast, but there were no reports of damage or injury.

Afyon, which means “opium” in Turkish--so named because it is where the bulk of Turkey’s opium poppies are grown--is a rural province of about 1 million people.

At least 150 buildings collapsed in Sunday’s quake, according to preliminary reports from a crisis center set up in Ankara to coordinate rescue and relief efforts.

Most were shops and offices. Four mosques in Bolvadin were also destroyed, and--as in 1999--shoddy construction materials used by unscrupulous contractors were blamed for the extent of the damage.

Public Works Minister Abdulkadir Akcan said the death toll could have been much worse had the quake struck during a workday.

“In Afyon, there is a large number of slightly damaged buildings,” Akcan said. “Because today is Sunday and shops are closed, a huge disaster was prevented.”

Turkish authorities, much criticized for their sluggish response to the 1999 temblor, seemed to be firmly in control in this disaster. Thousands of tents and blankets were delivered to the disaster zone only hours after the quake, and Turkish troops helped put up makeshift shelters for residents left homeless.

Before heading to Afyon to inspect the damage, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit appeared on national television to warn residents to stay away from damaged homes.

Apparently heeding his calls, survivors huddled throughout the night around makeshift fires outside freshly erected plastic tents as temperatures plunged.

“It is a terrible tragedy, and our greatest consolation is that we do not expect the fatalities to rise much further,” Ecevit said.