Turkey Quake Worst in a Decade

Rescuers in southeast Turkey are pulling survivors from collapsed buildings after the country was hit with one of the worst earthquakes in a decade.

The quake registered 7.2 killing more than 250 people with hundreds more feared dead.

The area hit is a remote and mountainous area near the border with Iran. Host Lisa Mullins talks with reporter David O’Byrne.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. They are still searching for survivors in eastern Turkey. A mountainous region near the border with Iran was rattled yesterday by a powerful earthquake. Turkish officials say the number of confirmed dead is close to 300, but it could grow as rescuers continue combing through the rubble. Turkey is crossed by several known fault lines and the country has suffered major earthquakes throughout it’s history. Back in 1999 two earthquakes hit the densely populated northwest of the country; those quakes killed about 20,000 people. Reporter David O’Byrne is in Istanbul, Turkey. He covered the ’99 quakes and says this time things are different.

David O’Byrne: The main difference between the quake of yesterday and the quake of 1999 is that in 1999 the area that was hit was one of the most densely populated parts of the country. The area that was hit yesterday is the region of Van, which is one of the remotest regions of Turkey. It’s way down in the southeast of the country close to the Iranian border. The main city of Van itself has a population of only around 400,000 and much of the population lives outside of the city in small villages, small towns which are less developed and which have less high rise buildings.

Mullins: David, I’m just wondering because you did cover the quake back in 1999, you’re covering this one now, 12 years later, what are the most remarkable and striking differences for you?

O’Byrne: I think the main difference is the speed of the official response. They were very quick to transport tents and other equipment into the region. They brought I think a large number of medical personnel into the region, that’s within, well, over slightly one day of the earthquake happening. And in 1999 as much as a week after the main quake happened there were still complaints there weren’t enough medical personnel. One of the problems in the 1999 earthquake was that not only did it cause extensive damage to a very, very heavily populated area, it also destroyed all the lines of communication. All of the power lines were down. There was no electricity. There were no telephones. Officials complained for several days that they were still unaware of what had happened in several areas. This time it seems to have been, the response seems to have been far quicker as the lines of communication appear to be far better. The telephone lines were working far more quickly. TV footage was coming out of the area affected by the earthquake within an hour or two of the quake having happened.

Mullins: And technology actually in those lines of communications were opened in a way that helped the rescue efforts for those people that had been buried as well, because we’ve heard that many of the people that were buried were able to get help by calling for help on their mobile phones.

O’Byrne: Yes, that actually did happen in 1999 as well, but to a lesser extent, probably because fewer people had mobile phones then, but yeah, I believe that some people have managed to call for help using mobile phones. There’s also been a number of people in areas affected by the quake this time who’ve been sending out messages calling for help on Twitter.

Mullins: By the way, have you seen any of those Twitter messages?

O’Byrne: I’ve seen a couple of them, yes, they were calling for more medical help. They were calling for more blankets and tents to be sent to the region because people were having to camp out at night…basically, passing on information.

Mullins: We understand that there have been several countries that have offered to help Turkey right now, including Azerbaijan, Iran, Bulgaria and Israel, among others. In some cases Turkey is refusing. Do you know why?

O’Byrne: My understanding is a lot of countries have offered help. My understanding also is that some countries in the region, on the border east of Turkey have been allowed to send aid over their borders. I think the reason that countries further away that help has been declined from those is purely logistic in that it’s extremely difficult to get into the Van region, which is in southeast Turkey, from say Greece, or Israel, or countries in Europe.

Mullins: All right, reporter David O’Byrne in Istanbul, Turkey. Thank you.

O’Byrne: Okay, thanks.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.