Rescuer dies as Turkish hotel topples in second earthquake

A JAPANESE aid worker was among ten people killed by an earthquake in eastern Turkey yesterday, sparking claims that authorities should have closed down two hotels damaged by a bigger quake last month.

Residents took to the streets in protest as rescue workers searched for survivors after Wednesday night’s tremor, which hit the same region as the 23 October disaster that left 600 people dead.

Around 28 people were pulled out of the rubble in the provincial capital, Van, during a frantic rescue effort. All ten who died were in the two hotels that collapsed.

Some of those buried were Turkish journalists covering the aftermath of the first quake, which left thousands homeless as cold weather began to close in on the mountainous region. Van’s most prominent hotel, the five-storey Bayram, survived the original magnitude-7.2 quake with some cracks and a damaged lift. But it was toppled by Wednesday’s 5.7 quake, trapping dozens of people. The Aslan Hotel also fell down.

“How is it that these two buildings were not sealed off and were allowed to continue operating?” asked Osman Baydemir, a mayor for the southeastern city of Diyarbakir and member of a pro-Kurdish opposition party. “The government must bring those responsible to account.”

Residents accused local authorities of not inspecting damaged buildings properly and called for the resignation of the local governor.

Deputy prime minister Besir Atalay was booed by protesters.Riot police charged demonstrators with batons and police used pepper spray to disperse them.

Mr Atalay said it was wrong to speculate over whether officials had made a mistake by allowing the hotel to operate after the first quake, and urged patience until a full investigation had been carried out. He said the latest quake knocked down 25 buildings in Van, but only two of those, both hotels, had remained occupied.

Tough building safety codes were approved a decade ago after quakes in western Turkey killed 18,000 people. They prompted an outcry over the poor quality of construction, but enforcement of the new rules has been far from stringent.

After last month’s quake, premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the negligence of local authorities, builders and officials who supervised building regulations amounted to murder.

Turkey’s Anatolia agency said Atsushi Miyazaki, of Japan’s Association for Aid and Relief, Japan, died in hospital after being dug out from the rubble of the Bayram Hotel on Thursday. Rescue workers tried to resuscitate him at the scene before he was taken to hospital.

His 32-year-old female colleague, Miyuki Konnai, was rescued alive from the wreckage of the same hotel late on Wednesday. The aid group said she was in a stable condition in hospital last night.

“We spoke with her briefly,” team manager Ikuko Natori said. “She had a slight injury, but it is not life-threatening.”

Two reporters from Turkey’s Dogan news agency were still believed to be trapped in the hotel debris last night.

Recep Salci, a member of the search and rescue group Akut, said that more survivors might be buried in the hotel rubble.

For the second time in a month, the Turkish government has dispatched hundreds of rescue workers to Van province.

About 1,400 aftershocks have rocked the region since the massive earthquake in October. Many residents had been living in tents despite the cold, too afraid to return home. Dogan Kalafat of Istanbul’s Kandilli observatory warned that more tremors could yet hit the region as winter approaches.