Earthquakes

Citation

(1999), "Earthquakes", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.1999.07308dac.003

Earthquakes

Earthquakes

28 June 1998 - Adana, Turkey

Keywords: Earthquakes

Rescuers with sniffer dogs, diggers and cutting equipment searched today for any survivors trapped under rubble after an earthquake struck the southern Turkish city of Adana yesterday and killed around 100 people. Hospitals were struggling to cope with nearly 1,000 casualties in and around the city of Adana after the quake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale. In the satellite town of Ceyhan a number of high-rise buildings collapsed. At one site workers extricated the body of a woman from the rubble of a block of flats and carried it silently to a waiting ambulance. "Since I have been here we have carried out seven dead from this building", a police officer said. The officer, who said he had been on duty all night, added: "We think there are another 25 inside". Solemn local residents said the seven-floor block of flats had contained 28 homes. Red Crescent, the Turkish aid organisation, sent 400 tents, 2,000 blankets and two portable kitchens to Adana, where thousands of people slept on mattresses outdoors on a warm, starry night. "Walls were demolished, mosques and minarets toppled. What can we do? Some people are here because their homes are damaged, some out of fear", said one man at a makeshift camp on a traffic island near the airport where he spent the night with scores of others. Many residents, too dazed to sleep, gathered in groups talking quietly and smoking. Some women sat on a roadside and wept. Electricity was cut in parts of the city and telephone contact and water supply were sporadic. Adana is a sprawling city of several million people near the Mediterranean coast. The surrounding plain is a humid, cotton producing area known in antiquity as Cilicia. President Suleyman Demirel and Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz led a number dignitaries on inspection visits to Adana in the aftermath of the quake. Demirel promised a rapid return to normality. "The wounds will be treated quickly, what was destroyed will be rebuilt. The pain of injured residents will end. Life will return to normal", Anatolian news agency quoted him as saying after meeting the regional governor. Authorities said the latest death toll was 107. The quake struck yesterday at 1700, (1400, GMT) and was also felt in Cyprus, Syria and Israel, although the casualties and damage were confined to Turkey. Sweden, Britain, Switzerland, Israel, Italy and France offered the Turkish government help, Anatolian said. Thousands of people tried to flee Adana in their cars as at least 16 aftershocks rocked the area. The quake was felt in tourist resorts to the west of the city but there were no reports of injuries. Western diplomats said there was no damage to Adana's Incirlik air base, from where US and British aircraft patrol a no-fly zone over the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. The nearby Ceyhan oil terminal was not affected, according to an Energy Ministry statement.

28 June 1998 - The Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources said there was no damage to the Kirkuk-Yamurtalik pipeline between Turkey and Iraq, following the earthquake. In a statement released today, the ministry said: "the pumping of 6,600 barrels of oil per hour continues normally. Also, the pumping with the Batman-Dortyol domestic pipeline continues normally". The Anatolia news agency reported that electricity had been restored to some hospitals and to all strategically places like the airport, security department and the mayor's office. The statement added, that engineers continue to determine whether or not there was any damage to the Seyhan, Catalan, Kesiksuyu, Kozan, Aslantas and Nergizlik dams in the region.

29 June 1998 - Hopes of finding more survivors of an earthquake in southern Turkey which killed more than 100 people faded today after extended searches through the rubble. Rescue teams, supported by cranes, cutting equipment and sniffer dogs, pressed on with efforts to remove debris and dead bodies after rescuing an 11-year-old boy from a collapsed apartment block in the badly hit town of Ceyhan. The quake killed some 116 people, including 50 in Ceyhan, 44 in Adana and the rest in surrounding villages. Hospitals struggled to cope with more than 1,500 injured people and residents of damaged apartment blocks spent the night outside in line with appeals by local officials. Greece has offered to send expert teams to help in the search for survivors. Offers of assistance also came from Germany, Sweden, Britain, Switzerland, Israel, Italy and France. At least 30 homes and apartment blocks and five workplaces collapsed. Three hospitals, six schools and a bridge were also damaged.

29 June 1998 - The powerful earthquake which struck southern Turkey at the weekend halted production at some major companies in the region, but most local industry was not seriously affected, sector officials said today. Textile company Bossa said its denim plant in the quake area had been damaged and output halted. In a statement to the stock exchange it said production would resume in several days. Output was continuing at its other plants. More than 100 people were killed and 1,500 injured in the quake which struck the cotton-producing Adana province on Saturday afternoon. Some apartment blocks and workplaces were destroyed by the tremor which damaged many other buildings. Container board maker Olmuksa, said a power cut caused by the tremor in the city of Adana had halted production at its plant there. A company official told Reuters there was no physical damage to the factory. Output halted for a day and a half at cement company Adana Cimento because of a lack of power but it has since returned to full capacity, the general manager said. Arat Tekstil said production had been halted today and would return to normal tomorrow. Other listed textile companies Mensa and Berdan said their activities had not been affected by the tremor while Ceytas Tekstil said there was only minor damage.

30 June 1998 - A large earthquake at the weekend (27-28 June) caused minor damage to a joint US-Turkish air base in southern Turkey from where Western jets patrol northern Iraq, US air force officials said today. "We have one or two buildings which will probably be structurally unsound", US Air Force Captain Max Torrance said. The earthquake on Saturday reached 6.3 on the Richter scale and killed more than 120 people in and around the city of Adana. Torrance said large cracks had appeared at a chapel at the base. A department store was also damaged. "Neither of them are operationally crucial", Torrance said. US military engineers from Germany have flown to Incirlik to inspect the base, where a total of 2,500 personnel and relatives live. "They're still going around and checking all the family housing to ensure that things are safe but it's looking pretty good", Torrance said. Officials at a crisis centre in the capital Ankara said today the death toll from the quake had risen to 127 as rescue workers pulled more bodies from the rubble. Paramedics carried a 46-year-old woman alive from under a collapsed building in the town of Ceyhan yesterday, exactly 48 hours after the quake struck. Hundreds of villagers in the outlying settlement of Yakapinar spent their third night outdoors in fear of their flimsy homes collapsing. Most of the houses were badly damaged. Turkey's media and some politicians have blamed poor construction fuelled by corruption and inefficiency for the collapse of many buildings in the earthquake. A prosecutor in Ceyhan has opened an investigation into whether sub-standard work by building firms had aggravated the death toll.

1 July 1998 - Turkish prosecutors have ordered the arrest of six builders in a row over construction safety after the earthquake last week which killed more than 140 people, a provincial chief prosecutor said today. "The arrest warrants have been issued", Adana chief prosecutor Ahmet Ceylani Tugrul said. The death toll rose to 144 today as work continued to uncover bodies from the wreckage, Anatolian news agency said. At least 30 homes, apartment blocks and five workplaces in Adana collapsed, and three hospitals, six schools and a bridge were damaged. Builders have come under fire from the media and residents, who have accused them of building cheap and illegal structures. Tugrul said the arrest orders were issued by prosecutors in Ceyhan district, the area worst hit by the quake. He said the builders could be charged if there was enough evidence of any negligence in their work. Turkey's main architects' group blamed local politicians for the deaths and damage. "Politicians who are responsible should be found. Mayors and municipality officials should be looked into first", Yavuz Onen, the head of Turkey's Architects' Union, told reporters. He said politicians had given permission for the construction of unsafe buildings for the sake of political gain.

11 July 1998 - Azores

Keywords: Earthquakes

A powerful aftershock struck the Azores early today, two days after an earthquake killed eight people in the mid-Atlantic Portuguese islands, but there were no fresh reports of casualties or damage, residents said. Meteorological officials said the tremor, whose epicentre was a few miles from Horta, capital of Faial island, was felt in the early hours of this morning and measured 4.3 on the Richter scale, the strongest since Thursday's quake. The quake, which hit Faial hardest in the nine-island archipelago and measured 5.8 on the Richter scale, killed eight people, injured around 100 and made at least 1,000 people homeless.