Earthquake kills hundreds in Turkey

More than 200 people were confirmed killed and hundreds more feared dead after an earthquake hit parts of southeast Turkey on Sunday.

“The focus is on search and rescue, and …taking care of survivors, making sure people are not in unsafe places to sleep, getting them to shelter.” said Joe Lowry from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

He said the damage could have been much worse.

“The area is not very highly populated. Its about 1.4 million people living within 100 kilometres of the epicentre,” he said. “But there are couple of large towns. They seem to have been quite badly damaged. Some building have fallen like pancakes, which means people trapped inside do not stand much chance. Luckily the earthquake didn’t happen at nigh time, when people are at their houses, so the death toll will be lower than if it would have happened at night time.”

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