Israel offers to help quake-hit Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey?? Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Monday to offer condolences for those killed in a devastating earthquake and said the Jewish state was ready to help, officials of both countries said.

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Relations between Israel and Turkey have been frayed since Israeli commandos killed nine Turks during a raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip in 2010.

Sources at Erdogan's office said Netanyahu reminded Erdogan that Turkey sent fire-fighting planes in December last year to help Israel battle a brush fire that killed 41 people and said Israel was now ready to help Turkey.

At least 279 people were killed and more than 1,300 wounded when a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey on Sunday.

Rescue efforts were continuing Monday to save those still alive, but trapped in the rubble.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the call between the two country's leaders took place.

Story: Seismic web gave rise to Turkey's killer quake

"Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his condolences to the victims of the terrible earthquake and offered Israel's help in dealing with the tragedy. The Turkish prime minister thanked him for his words and for his offer to help," the official said.

It was too early to know if the exchange would lead to a rapprochement. Turkey has demanded Israel apologize and pay compensation for the killings and lift the blockade on Gaza as a condition to normalize ties with its former strategic ally.

Tensions between the two U.S. allies rose last month when Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador after Israel refused to apologize and said its marines acted in self-defense in clashes with pro-Palestinian activists on one of the vessels.

PhotoBlog: Rescue workers find survivors in collapsed buildings

Israel has sent rescue teams to quake-prone Turkey in the past after earthquakes struck.

Turkey has received offers of assistance from countries as far as China and Pakistan but so far has accepted aid only from Iran and Azerbaijan.

'Turkey is thankful'
Earlier Monday, Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc denied Turkey had declined an offer of aid from Israel.

"Our ties with Israel may not be at desired levels, but it's out of the question to refuse humanitarian offers," Arinc told a news conference.

Story: Turkey declines Israeli aid offer

"Turkey is thankful and respects all countries who offered help," he said, but cautioned that "if aid from all countries arrived in Van it would be chaos".

The bustling city of Van sustained substantial damage, but Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said search efforts there were winding down.

"I just felt the whole earth moving and I was petrified. It went on for ages. And the noise, you could hear this loud, loud noise," said Hakan Demirtas, 32, a builder who was working on construction site in Van at the time.

"My house is ruined," he said, sitting on a low wall after spending the night in the open. "I am still afraid, I'm in shock. I have no future, there is nothing I can do."

Slideshow: Powerful earthquake strikes Turkey (on this page)

The worst-hit area was the the city of Ercis, where about 80 multistory buildings collapsed. The eastern city of 75,000 lies close to the Iranian border in one of Turkey's most earthquake-prone zones.

Dozens of the dead were placed in body bags or covered by blankets, laid down in rows so people could search for their missing relatives.

"It's my grandson's wife. She was stuck underneath rubble," said Mehmet Emin Umac.

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Grieving families cried outside the Ercis mosque.

"My nephew, his wife and their child, all three dead. May God protect us from this kind of grief," resident Kursat Lap told The Associated Press. "They all came here for a Sunday breakfast and then what happened, happened."

Several other men carried a child's body wrapped in a white cloth as weeping family members followed behind.

'Be patient'
Some desperate survivors cried for help from beneath mounds of smashed concrete and twisted metal.

"Be patient, be patient," rescuers told a whimpering boy, pinned under a concrete slab with the lifeless hand of an adult, with a wedding ring, visible just in front of his face.

A Reuters photographer saw a woman and her daughter being freed from beneath a concrete slab in the wreckage of a building that had once been six stories tall.

"I'm here, I'm here," the woman, named Fidan, called out in a hoarse voice. Talking to her regularly while working for more than two hours to find a way through, rescuers cut through the slab, first sighting the daughter's foot, before freeing them.

More than 2,000 teams with a dozen sniffer dogs were involved in search-and-rescue and aid efforts, and more often than not they found dead bodies, not survivors. Cranes and other heavy equipment lifted slabs of concrete, allowing residents to dig for the missing with shovels.
Those efforts were hampered by over 200 aftershocks that rocked the area, with one on Monday rising up to 5.0 magnitude.

Leaders around the world, including President Barack Obama, conveyed their condolences and offered assistance.

"We stand shoulder to shoulder with our Turkish ally in this difficult time, and are ready to assist," Obama said.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply saddened by the loss of life and devastation. "He expresses his heartfelt sympathies to the government and people of Turkey at this time of loss and suffering," a U.N. statement said.

Turkey lies in one of the world's most active seismic zones and is crossed by numerous fault lines. In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.

Istanbul, the country's largest city with more than 12 million people, lies in northwestern Turkey near a major fault line, and experts say tens of thousands could be killed if a major quake struck there.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45011278/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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