With 114 Dead, Turkey Ends Search for Quake Victims

Turkish authorities have called off a search for further victims of Friday’s earthquake in and around the southwestern coastal city of Izmir, the death toll standing at 114. Another two people were killed on the nearby Greek island of Samos. Over 1,030 people in Turkey were injured, with 137 still hospitalized. It is considered the deadliest earthquake to have hit Turkey in almost 10 years, destroying or severely damaging 17 buildings, according to Mehmet Gulluoglu, the head of the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency. Nine people, some of them building contractors, have been detained for questioning in the collapse of six of the buildings, according to news reports. The last survivor to be pulled from the rubble was a three-year-old girl, rescued on Tuesday. The body of her mother was found nearby. Friday’s quake was measured at between 6.6 and 7.0 on the Richter Scale. Turkey sits atop two major fault lines and suffers numerous temblors each year.