The death toll in a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in eastern Turkey climbed to 279 while rescue workers are searching for hundreds of people trapped under rubble in the country’s worst natural disaster since 1999, western media reports.
At least 2,262 buildings collapsed in the quake that struck a region near the Iranian border yesterday, about 1,300 kilometers (700 miles) east of Istanbul, the government said. As many as 1,000 people may have died, officials said. Aftershocks as high as magnitude 6 rattled the area as staff at damaged hospitals treated the injured and the homeless sought shelter in tents as the temperature approached freezing.
