Young Boy Pulled from Turkish Quake Ruins

A 13-year-old boy was pulled from a collapsed building without injury on Friday, five days after Turkey's powerful earthquake struck, and state-run TV said he survived by drinking rain water that seeped through cracks in the wreckage around him.

The boy, Ferhat Tokay, also used shoes under his head as a pillow and peered through a tiny gap in the wreckage to see when it was day or night outside, his uncle said.

Tokay was discovered early Friday morning, soon after rescue workers from Azerbaijan had sent the uncle and other relatives away from the site to get some rest, saying there was no chance of finding the missing boy alive.

The 7.2 magnitude quake leveled about 2,000 buildings in eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing at least 575 people and leaving about 2,500 injured and thousands of homeless.
In all, over 5,000 buildings in the area are unfit for people to live or work in.

Death Toll Rises in Turkey Earthquake

An earthquake of 7.2 magnitude on Sunday has killed 217 people and injured 1,090 in eastern Turkey, the interior minister said.

A hundred people died in Van city and 117 in the Ercis district of Van province, said Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin, adding 1,090 were injured.

An earlier toll announced by the Turkish prime minister had given 138 people dead and 350 injured.

The quake that struck Van, a large eastern city populated mainly by Kurds, was Turkey's strongest in years. Fears are running high that the toll might increase further as many people were trapped under collapsed buildings.

The US Geological Survey initially measured the quake at 7.3 magnitude but later downgraded it to 7.2.

Earthquake-prone Turkey lies atop several fault lines.

In 1999, two strong quakes in the heavily populated and industrialised regions of northwest Turkey left some 20,000 dead and many more homeless.

This video gives some indication of how violent the quake was.