State-run TRT television said 85 people have been confirmed dead, 60 of them in the northern town of Ercis, while 80 buildings, including a dormitory, have collapsed. Officials from the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute said 500 to 1,000 people may have died.
The magnitude 7.2-earthquake struck in the province of Van by the Iranian border at 1:41 p.m. local time and was followed by more than 80 aftershocks, the observatory at Bogazici University in Istanbul said on its website. The temblor, 5 kilometers (3 miles) below the earth’s surface, was the province’s bigge-st since 1976 and the country’s most severe since a 1999 quake killed more than 17,000 people.
“The area where the earthquake occurred is very shallow,” Mustafa Erdik, head of the Kandilli observatory, said in televised comments. “Normally quakes happen 30 to 40 kilometers deep -- this is less than 10 kilometers, therefore there will be more damage.”
CNN Turk television showed images of men in Van on the rubble of a collapsed dormitory building, digging away wreckage with shovels to reach people they believe were trapped underneath.
Aid Efforts
More than 1,000 rescue workers from about 30 provinces are heading to Van, about 1,300 miles from Istanbul, said Mustafa Aydogdu, a spokesman for the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency.
Greek Foreign Minister Stavros Lambrinidis spoke with Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu to extend his condolences and assured him the country was prepared to assist its eastern neighbor, the ministry in Athens said in an e-mailed statement. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization also said by e-mail that it stands “ready to assist our ally Turkey.”
Other countries that called to convey condolences and offer help include Israel, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Ukraine, Russia, Canada and South Korea, the U.S., the U.K, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Georgia, China, Japan, Iran and Kosovo, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
The Turkish Red Crescent is coordinating initial efforts to get aid to Van from eight provinces, Erdem Coplen, a spokesman in Ankara, said in an e-mailed statement. Under the first stage of the emergency response, 1,163 tents, 4,250 blankets, 100 heaters and food has been shipped to the region, he said.
Relations between Israel and Turkey have been frayed since Israeli commandos killed nine Turks during a raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip in 2010.
Tension rose last month when Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador after Israel refused to apologize for the killings, saying its marines acted in self-defense in confrontations with pro-Palestinian activists on one of the vessels.
Peres's conversation with Gul was believed to be the first between the two leaders since the envoy was expelled.
Gul told Peres that Turkey was still assessing the damage from the earthquake and that he hoped Turkish rescue teams could handle the disaster, the Israeli statement said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel was willing to provide "anything from food, medicine, medical staff and equipment to search-and-rescue teams." He said Israel was awaiting Ankara's reply.
Despite their fraught relations, Turkey sent fire-fighting planes in December last year to help Israel battle a brush fire that killed 41 people.
In southeast Turkey, emergency workers battled to rescue people trapped in buildings in the city of Van and surrounding districts near the border with Iran. A local official said many people were killed or injured and tents and rescue teams were needed urgently.
"I speak as a person, a Jew and an Israeli who remembers and is well aware of the depth of the historic relations between our two peoples," Peres told Gul, according to the statement. "From this place, I send condolences on behalf of all Israel to the families of those killed."
Although Peres's office is largely ceremonial, he is briefed regularly by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on diplomatic affairs.
Israel has sent search and rescue teams to Turkey in the past after earthquakes struck. In 1999, an Israeli military rescue team pulled a 10-year-old Israeli girl out of the rubble of a collapsed building in Cirarcik in northwest Turkey, where her family was on holiday. She had been trapped for nearly 100 hours.
The team spent a week in Turkey, rescuing 12 people and recovering 140 bodies. Israel also set up a field hospital in the region, where two large quakes that year killed more than 20,000 people, treating more than 1,000 victims.
All about:Ercis, Bitlis TRT television USGS Turkey earthquake
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