ANKARA (TURKEY) – The death toll in the Turkish city of Izmir, which was rocked by a powerful earthquake on Friday, has risen to 25 on Saturday as rescue workers sift through the rubble searching for possible survivors.
According to officials, as many as 25 people were killed in coastal areas in the west of Turkey while a teenage boy and a girl perished on the Greek island of Samos after a wall collapsed on them.
At least 20 buildings in Izmir were destroyed, authorities said, and the rescue work was taking place as hundreds of aftershocks hit the area.
Television images and videos showed delicate work to rescue people from under the rubble. In central Izmir, rescuers were seeking to save a mother and her four children from the remains of a building.
Search and rescue operations were complete in eight buildings, while operations continued in nine locations, officials said.
At least 804 people were injured in Turkey, the country’s disaster agency said. The area had been hit by some 470 aftershocks it said.
The leaders of Turkey and Greece – caught up in a bitter dispute over exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean – spoke by phone late on Friday.
In a rare show of warmth between the two countries, Turkish and Greek leaders exchanged solidarity messages.
“I just called President (Tayyip Erdogan) to offer my condolences for the tragic loss of life from the earthquake that struck both our countries. Whatever our differences, these are times when our people need to stand together,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted.
Erdogan responded in a tweet:
“I offer my condolences to all of Greece on behalf of myself and the Turkish people. Turkey, too, is always ready to help Greece heal its wounds. That two neighbours show solidarity in difficult times is more valuable than many things in life.”
Turkey is crossed by fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. Cooperation between the two countries after a devastating earthquake in 1999 led to a period of warmer ties between them.
