
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 16, 1992                   TAG: 9203160051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ERZINCAN, TURKEY                                LENGTH: Medium

2ND EARTHQUAKE HITS TURKEY DEATH TOLL RISES; HOMELESS ESTIMATE INCREASES TO

Another strong earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Sunday, just two days after one that killed as many as 800 people and left 180,000 homeless. Panicked residents ran into the streets and power was knocked out.

The new shock came as tents and food aid poured into this city, a quarter of which was reduced to rubble by Friday's earthquake. A government official said many of the collapsed buildings were poorly constructed or higher than the city's three-story limit.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from Sunday's quake, which was centered in Tunceli province and felt from the Soviet border to Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported.

The first quake left up to 800 people dead, according to Turkish figures cited Sunday by the Office of the U.N. Disaster Relief Coordinator in Geneva. Some relief officials said the toll could climb into the thousands, as more bodies were recovered in remote areas.

Search efforts in Erzincan concentrated on big buildings, most of which included restaurants full of people breaking the daylong fast observed during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Cranes lifted tons of concrete at the collapsed City Club, a five-story building where up to 200 people were thought to be in the restaurants and tea houses.

"Since we don't have enough heavy equipment we have to set priorities based on the number of people," said a police officer, Rifat Aksoy.

A score of doctors were still treating the injured in the open air Sunday, on cots set up in the mud outside the city's damaged hospital.

Two survivors were dug out of the rubble Sunday and rescuers said at least one and possibly two young women were still alive in a collapsed dormitory at a nursing school.

But with temperatures below freezing, hope of finding many more people alive faded.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB