Death toll from Aegean Sea quake rises to 60

Rescue workers continue to search for survivors under the wreckage of eight buildings in the city of Izmir, in western Turkey.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Sunday there was “no clear number on how many people are still under rubble. Hard to give a number. There is an estimation, but I cannot share.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that 103 people had been rescued from the debris so far.

A total of 20 buildings were seriously damaged in Izmir by the tremor, according to Izmir Mayor Tunc Soyer, the majority of them in the middle-class Bayrakli district.

At least 940 people have been injured in Turkey, 218 of whom are still being treated at hospitals, the country’s disaster agency said Sunday.

More than 900 aftershocks have been registered since the initial quake, 42 of them with a magnitude over 4.0, according to the agency.

Greek authorities said Friday that two teenagers, a boy and a girl, died on Samos after a wall collapsed on them.

The earthquake also triggered what authorities called a “mini tsunami,” causing streets to flood Friday in parts of Turkey’s wider Izmir province, as well as on Samos.

Emergency services personnel search the scene for survivors in Izmir on Saturday.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured the tremor’s magnitude at 7.0, while Turkish authorities said it was 6.6. The quake struck 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) northeast of the town of Néon Karlovásion on Samos, the USGS reported.

It hit at a relatively shallow depth of 21 kilometers (13 miles), the USGS reported, making its impact powerfully felt at ground level around the epicenter.

CNN’s Isil Sariyuce reported from Istanbul and Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London.

source: cnn.com