Turkish quake survivors clamour for tents

Sheltering thousands of families left homeless by a deadly earthquake became Turkey's priority as chances dwindled of finding more survivors four days after disaster struck the mainly Kurdish southeast province of Van.

The death toll rose to 481 on Wednesday and the number of injured was put at 1,650 after Sunday's 7.2 magnitude tremor, the quake-prone country's biggest in more than a decade.

In Ercis, a town of 100,000 that was hardest hit, people stood in a line that stretched back more than 1.5 kilometres to get tents and blankets being handed out by troops.

"I have been standing in line for two days," one man told Reuters Television. "Unfortunately, they put up 40,000 tents for Syrians in two days but we still don't have tents here in Ercis."

The Turkish Red Crescent, which had acted swiftly to provide refuge for Syrians fleeing the violence in their homeland this year, has received some of the blame for a lack of organisation.

Several countries have answered Turkey's call for help to supply tents, prefabricated housing and containers.

With time running out for anyone still buried beneath the collapsed buildings, search and rescue operations in Ercis, switched to faster, clumsier methods as heavy lifting and digging machinery moved in to clear the rubble.

Earlier most of the work was carried out by specialist rescuers, who painstakingly tried to find ways to reach trapped people without disturbing whatever space had saved them from being crushed.

Exhausted relatives clung to hopes that loved ones would still be found, keeping vigil at the site of their destroyed homes as searches went on for any sign of life.

Groups of shellshocked people roamed aimlessly, with no home to go to, huddling around fires as night-time temperatures dropped to freezing. Others congregated in relief camps.

Cold rain in the past two days has added to woes, and for villagers in outlying areas there were fears of a second wave of death with the first expected winter snow next month.

"After 15 days, half of the people here will die, freeze to death," said Orhan Ogunc, a 37-year-old man in Guvencli a village of some 200 homes deep in the hills between Ercis and the city of Van. His family had a Red Crescent tent, though they were sharing it with five other families.

Due to primitive housing in the quake-hit region, many villages were devastated.

Although some families were staying out in the open few were ready to leave their land, preferring to bank on promises of temporary housing within about six weeks.

"They say we will get prefabricated houses in one-and-a-half months," said Zeki Yatkin, a 46-year old man who had lost his father in the quake. "We can't tolerate the cold, but what else could we do?"

POLITICAL ISSUES

Search operations have ended in the city of Van.

Provincial governor Munir Karaloglu said only six buildings had collapsed in the city in Sunday's quake, whereas many more were destroyed in Ercis.

The disaster could be a chance for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government to show the Kurds how much it cares for their people, so any accusations of neglect or ineptitude are politically sensitive.

Having won a third consecutive term in a national election last June, Erdogan aims to replace the constitution with one that will boost democratic values by, among other things, addressing some of the Kurdish minority's grievances.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in a separatist insurgency that has lasted three decades, and last week militants killed 24 troops in neighbouring Hakkari province.

The United States and the European Union, as well as Turkey, consider the PKK separatist guerrilla group to be a terrorist organisation.

Some quake victims have blamed Erdogan's AK party for a slow response and accused officials of handing aid to their supporters.

At one warehouse in Van, about 100 people looted Red Crescent trucks carrying food, blankets, carpets and clothes while a handful of police appeared powerless to stop them.

"The real looter is the AK Party. The aid received in Van is handed to the families of public servants and policemen. Ordinary people don't get anything," one old man told Reuters.

Governor Karaloglu said, however, that as of Wednesday 20,000 tents had been handed out. According to him that was far more than was really needed.

A central government appointee, the governor said that things would be better if people in the city of one million were not gripped by fear that an aftershock could topple their homes, even they were undamaged by the quake.

"Because of this psychology, and the aftershocks, they don't use their undamaged house and ask for tent," said Karaloglu. "This is why we have a problem."

He said 600,000 people were affected by the quake, but that did not mean all of them needed temporary accommodation.

Deputy mayor Cahit Bozbay, a member of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), gave a far bleaker assessment and criticised the governor's office for not working with municipality officials.

He said half of the buildings in Van had been damaged in the quake, giving frightened people no choice but to sleep outside in the cold.

"We are short of tents. It's a major problem. We lack supplies, but honestly the aid delivery organisation is also problematic," said Bozbay.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.