Search for earthquake survivors called off
Rescuers today pulled out the bodies of the last of 83 schoolchildren killed when a dormitory collapsed in an earthquake in eastern Turkey, and officials called off the search for any more survivors.
Teams located four bodies overnight, retrieving that of 14-year-old Cihat Avci this morning.
“As of now, the search for survivors has ended,” said Ahmet Yilmaz, a spokesman for the Government’s earthquake crisis centre in nearby Bingol.
Rescuers said Avci had been squeezed between the bunk beds where he had been sleeping when the magnitude 6.4 quake struck early on Thursday.
“I can just remember his smile,” said teacher Fikret Nimetligil, who was helping identify the bodies. “Some people lost one or two children, I lost 80,” he said of the 83 children, aged seven to 16, who perished in the boarding school dormitory.
Rescuers lowered Avci’s body from a pile of concrete slabs and twisted steel into an ambulance and quietly collected their equipment. No one had been found alive in the rubble since Friday morning.
A total of 167 people were confirmed dead throughout the quake-struck region. More than 1,000 were injured.
The earthquake caused several buildings to collapse, including the dormitory housing 198 children, most of them the sons and daughters of poor Kurdish farmers from surrounding villages with no schools.
School principal Mustafa Gurhan said: “There will definitely be a new school standing here, but I doubt there’ll ever be another dormitory.”
Survivor Hanefi Beldek picked up scraps of paper and notebooks scattered around the rubble.
“What I’m really looking for is my diary that was signed by all my friends. There is nothing in the world that I want more right now,” the 15-year-old boy said, crying.
“The sky opened suddenly and the entire third floor went down like an elevator,” Beldek said. “I can’t stop thinking about that horrible night. I can’t leave this place. I don’t sleep and I don’t eat.”
Fehmi Birgonul, 15, said he last heard his best friend’s voice screaming from behind the wall.
“He screamed ’Help me!’ then his voice was cut off,” Birgonul said. “Then his coffin came yesterday.”
Inspectors took samples from the crumbled building after the Government launched an investigation into the contractor who built the school. The columns of the four-storey building apparently lacked steel support rods and sufficient concrete, and the collapsing building crushed the children as they slept.
Although Turkey has suffered several massive quakes over the past decade, experts say little has been done to address the problem of poor construction, which was blamed for many of the more than 18,000 deaths from two massive quakes in western Turkey in 1999.
Rescuers say search and rescue operations have, however, made a giant step forward compared to the disorganised disaster relief witnessed in 1999 when the Government was harshly criticised.
Although Thursday’s quake was comparatively small, rescuers say that the quick, coordinated and specialised rescue efforts show a sharp improvement in the preparedness of this quake-prone country.
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