BINGOL, Turkey
May 2
Clashes erupted between police and local Kurds over shortages of earthquake relief supplies on Friday as rescue workers kept searching for dozens of children in the rubble of a collapsed school dormitory.
Policemen fired into the air with automatic rifles after hundreds of protesters demanding more tents, food and water attacked police cars and anti-riot vehicles in the city of Bingol. Some protesters ripped large stones from the paved streets and threw them at the governor's building.
Two paramilitary police and three reporters were injured from flying stones, the Anatolia news agency reported.
The confirmed death toll from Thursday's quake stood at 105, the provincial government said. About 1,000 people were injured.
Police manning heavy machine guns on top of armored vehicles patrolled the streets of the city as clashes spread to the side streets with Kurdish youths stoning police vehicles.
Hundreds of paramilitary troops armed with automatic weapons were called in as reinforcements.
The crowds were demanding the governor's resignation and attempted to enter the governor's building, officials said. Several protesters were injured by a speeding police van that drove through the crowd.
There is deep distrust between Kurds and security forces in Turkey's east after a 15-year Kurdish rebel war and ensuing government crackdown left 37,000 dead and millions displaced.
Bingol Governor Huseyin Avni Cos said Kurdish rebels were taking advantage of the quake to raise tensions, but said security forces may have overreacted. The Bingol chief of police was fired just after the clashes.
"We just came here to get tents. But they started firing on us," said protester Ramazan Yararli. A Muslim cleric used his mosque's loudspeaker to appeal for calm, while police told the crowd to wait in front of their homes for aid to be distributed.
The Turkish Red Crescent has sent 3,700 tents and 13,000 blankets to the region, but Cos said he had only handed out 1,200 so far because he wanted the distribution to be fair. He said 20,000 more tents were needed. Food and drinking water are also insufficient, officials said.
In the nearby village of Celtiksuyu, rescuers continued to dig through the rubble of a boarding school dormitory that collapsed with 198 students inside.
One boy, Enef Gunce, was rescued Friday morning after spending more than 30 hours under the debris. Weary rescuers applauded as Gunce, apparently with only slight injuries, was carried out of the rubble on a stretcher and quickly put in ambulance.
By midday Friday, 117 children had been rescued. But hopes of finding more survivors were beginning to fade as the bodies of 44 children were found. Thirty-seven were still unaccounted for.
"I have been sitting here since yesterday morning," said Gazal Gunalan, whose 15-year-old son Mehmet was buried under the rubble. "At the beginning I was expecting him to come out alive ... now I'm waiting for his body."
Hundreds of aftershocks have hit the region since the initial 17-second temblor, and thousands of people were in the streets, afraid to re-enter their homes.
The quake's epicenter was just outside Bingol, a poor area some 430 miles east of Ankara.
The school building's collapse again focused attention on poor construction methods that have been blamed for heavy death tolls in previous quakes in Turkey.
Nihat Ozdemir head of the Turkish Contractors' Union said contractors were not being inspected carefully, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to prosecute those responsible for shoddy construction.
The primary and middle boarding school was built in 1999 mainly for the children of farmers from surrounding villages. For many, it represented the hope for a better future for the children of poor Kurds.
"My son always said 'I don't want to stay uneducated like you Dad. I want a different life,'" said Nihat Bezekci, whose 11-year-old son Ahmet was still trapped in the building. "If I had been able, I wish I had sent him to a better school, not here."
Much of the country sits atop the active North Anatolian fault and tremors are frequent. A 1971 quake in Bingol killed 900 people.
photo credit and caption:
Turkish rescuers carry Enes Gunce, 12, a student who was trapped under debris of the collapsed school dormitory in the village of Celtiksuyu near Bingol, southeastern Turkey Friday May 2, 2003. A strong earthquake shook southeastern Turkey Thursday killing nearly 100 people and injuring 1,000 others. Rescuers dug frantically in the rubble of a school dormitory, hunting for about 70 children believed trapped. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)
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