Deadly Quake in Turkey Traps Children

Hundreds of Turkish soldiers and volunteers battled to rescue as many as 100 children trapped in the debris of their school dormitory, which was destroyed Thursday by an earthquake that killed more than 100 people and injured about 1,000 in the largely Kurdish southeastern province of Bingol.

“It’s a race against time. I fear many may not make it,” said Selahattin Bulut, head of the rescue team. “Look at this building -- it’s no different from a gozleme,” or Turkish pancake, he said, pointing to the remains of the four-story building.

More than 150 students of the primary and junior school were sleeping in the building when the quake, which measured 6.4 on the Richter scale, struck at 3:27 a.m. Thursday. More than 20, along with a teacher, were killed. Bulut and other officials at the scene said about 40 children had been rescued but that anywhere from 70 to 100 others remain buried under the debris.

Scores of Turkish soldiers formed a human chain to prevent families of the children from approaching the rubble where their loved ones were trapped.

“My son, I want my son, may Allah take my life and grant him his,” cried Halise Cakir, a gaunt Kurdish woman, pounding her chest with clenched fists. Nearby, a group of women in black chadors wailed in Kurdish, tears streaming down their weather-beaten faces as rescue workers rushed out a survivor toward ambulances standing ready at the scene.

“It’s not my son, oh where is he?” cried one of the women, breaking free from the group.

Earthquakes are not unusual in Turkey, which is on the Anatolian fault. A 1971 quake here killed 900. Two earthquakes in western Turkey killed at least 17,000 in 1999.

From 100 to 150 people are thought to have been killed in Thursday’s quake, whose epicenter was just outside Bingol, a city of 250,000 in this largely poor rural area. Officials said a bridge and at least 25 buildings fell.

“Intense rescue efforts are continuing. Our government is determined to deal swiftly with this disaster,” Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in a televised address after flying from Ankara to Bingol.

Medical teams stood outside the pulverized remains of the dormitory, ready to treat the wounded. Ersin Besbelli, a skinny 14-year-old, was on a blanket on the ground, a drip embedded in his arm. He managed to muster a wobbly smile.

“I was sleeping in my bunk bed when suddenly the ground began to shake, then the ceiling began to collapse,” the teenager said.

Ersin, who spent seven hours trapped in his bed, survived thanks to the steel frame supporting the top bunk, which acted like a support protecting him from collapsing walls. Others who shared the first floor survived thanks to steel lockers lining the side of their room. During the quake, the steel held up the part of the ceiling.

“A fireman saved me,” Ersin said.

Anger was palpable among the men, who in keeping with the strong Islamic tradition, stood separately from the women as they awaited news of their loved ones.

“This is a death trap, not a dormitory,” said Serhat Ketenalp, a farmer from the neighboring village of Garipkoy, who was awaiting word of his 13-year-old son.

Like many here, he blamed shoddy construction materials for the destruction. “This is not cement, this is sand,” he said, running a fistful of powdery debris through his fingers. “The people who built this should be hanged.”

“If the government had built a proper school in our village, we would not have had to send our children to die here,” said Mehmet Batur, another villager. “There are 160 families in our village and only one school, one teacher and he only comes for two hours a day.”

Fly-by-night contractors and corrupt government officials who issued them licenses were largely blamed for the high death toll in the 1999 quakes.

“We might suspect that there was stealing from the materials. ... We have seen similar things in other earthquakes. We must learn the lesson as a society and those guilty of this must face justice,” Erdogan said.

“The guilty will be prosecuted,” he said.

“We are responsible of the deaths and we need to take measures,” Culture Minister Erkan Mumcu told reporters. Earthquakes “happen all around the world ... but no country in the world loses as many people to quakes as Turkey.”

In Bingol, many of the buildings that collapsed were only 3 to 5 years old. “The thieves, the murderers,” thundered Zeki Atalay, a businessman, whose mother and brother remain buried under a five-story apartment block known as the Korkmaz, or “Fearless.”

About 20 corpses were recovered from the building, home to 16 families.

At the Bingol state hospital, harried doctors tended to the wounded inside first-aid tents erected outside.

“We can barely cope, we’ve treated 350 victims so far,” said Serif Yilmaz, a young doctor, his tunic stained with blood.

The only other hospital in town was so badly damaged that it had to be evacuated. Many of the wounded were rushed for treatment to the neighboring provinces of Diyarbakir and Elazig, where the tremor was also widely felt.

Aid was rushed to the region, which was experiencing hundreds of aftershocks.