138 dead after major earthquake strikes Turkey

138 dead after major earthquake strikes Turkey
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 138 people are dead and 350 people injured in the wake of Sunday's earthquake -- the most powerful to strike the country in more than a decade.
Ninety-three were killed in Van, while 45 were killed in Ercis, he said, adding that those numbers are expected to rise.
Rescue teams will work through the night to save people who are still trapped in the rubble, Erdogan told reporters.
Citizens werejewelry manufacturers using flashlights and shovels as they clambered over collapsed buildings looking for survivors.
The U.S. Geological Survey initially reported the quake had a magnitude of 7.3, then revised it down to 7.2.
Roughly 20 aftershocks rattled the region, one of the nation's poorest. The largest had a magnitude of 6.0.
Erdogan said 55 buildings collapsed in Ercis on the northwholesale crystal jewelryshore of Lake Van, while the Turkish Red Crescent had said earlier that some 25 apartment buildings and a student dormitory collapsed in the town.
Local rescuers took many wounded people out of the dormitory, the Red Crescent statement said, without saying exactly how many.
A health services building alsofashion earrings collapsed, along with part of a hospital, CNN sister network CNN Turk reported. At least two doctors were thought to be in the rubble of the health services building, the network said. The injured were being treated in the hospital's garden.
"People are really scared," saidwholesale jewelry suppliesCNN Turk reporter Nevsin Mengu. "The survivors are now trying to survive the cold weather."