ERCIS, Turkey — Turkey set aside its national pride on Tuesday and said it would accept international aid offers as the death toll from Sunday’s 7.2-magnitude quake climbed to at least 459.
Rescuers continued to dig through rubble of buildings toppled by the quake while desperate survivors fought over aid and blocked shipments of aid. A powerful aftershock ignited widespread panic and led to a prison riot in a nearby provincial city.
But the grim day wasn’t without a miracle. After 48 hours, a 2-week-old baby girl was pulled half-naked but alive from the wreckage of an apartment building.
Rescue workers broke out in cheers and applause Tuesday at sight of the infant — and again hours later when her mother and grandmother were pulled out.
Turkey’s state-run Anatolia news agency reported today that an 18-year-old university student was pulled out injured but alive from the ruins of an apartment building after he was trapped for 61 hours.
With thousands of quake survivors facing a third night in the open in near freezing temperatures, Turkey announced it would accept international aid offers, even from Israel, with which it has had strained relations.
Tuesday’s dramatic rescue of three generations of one family was all the more remarkable because the infant, Azra Karaduman, was declared healthy after being flown to a hospital in Ankara, the Turkish capital.
Television footage showed rescuer Kadir Direk in an orange jumpsuit wriggling into a narrow slit in the pile of concrete and metal, then sliding back out with Azra, clad only in a T-shirt.
“Praise be!” someone shouted. “Get out of the way!” another yelled as the aid team and bystanders cleared a path to a waiting ambulance.
“Bringing them out is such happiness. I wouldn’t be happier if they gave me tons of money,” said rescuer Oytun Gulpinar.
The pockets of jubilation were tempered by many more discoveries of bodies by thousands of aid workers in the worst-hit city of Ercis and other communities in eastern Turkey devastated by the earthquake.
So far, more than 30 people have been found alive, trapped in the rubble in Van, Ercis and other towns and villages in the region near the border with Iran.
Rescuers continued to hold out hope that there would be more survivors, but the widespread destruction and the deteriorating weather — the temperature in Van dipped below 30 degrees overnight — suggested that the death toll may continue to rise.
Even rescues were tinged with sadness: 10-year-old Serhat Gur was pulled alive from the rubble of a building after being trapped for 54 hours, only to die a short time later at a hospital, state-run TRT television reported.
More than 2,260 buildings in Van and the vicinity were damaged or destroyed. But the fact that the quake hit in daytime, when many people were out of their homes, averted an even worse disaster.
Close to 500 aftershocks have rattled the area, according to Turkey’s Kandilli seismology center. A strong one Tuesday sent residents rushing into the streets in panic while sparking a riot by prisoners in Van, 55 miles south of Ercis. The U.S. Geological Survey put that temblor at a magnitude of 5.7.
Some prisoners demanded to be let out while others set bedding on fire as the revolt spread inside the 1,000-bed prison, the Dogan news agency reported. Security forces surrounded the lockup to try to prevent escapes, while military vehicles fired water cannons at crowds gathered outside in the streets.
There was still no power or running water in the region, and desperate people stopped trucks even before they entered Ercis, grabbing tents and other supplies. Kanal D television showed people fighting over tents and blankets.
Aid workers said they were able to find emergency housing for only about half the thousands of people who needed it.
Turkey decided to accept offers of assistance after its emergency management authorities decided that thousands of survivors would need prefabricated homes to get through the winter in the mountainous region, said a Turkish Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with ministry rules.
An Israeli plane was to take seven portable structures to Turkey today, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
A ministry spokesman said Turkey asked for emergency housing units, and Israel was checking what else it could do.
The two countries were once close allies, but Turkey has shifted to seeking a wider Mideast role while harshly criticizing Israel.
Israel offered assistance despite a rift between the two countries over last year’s Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed nine Turkish activists.
At least 1,352 people were injured in the quake, TRT television said. Nine people were rescued Tuesday, although many more bodies were discovered.
The mother of the rescued baby, Semiha Karaduman, and the child’s grandmother, Gulsaadet, were huddled together with the infant held tight against her mother’s shoulder when rescuers found them, rescuer Direk told The Associated Press.
Hours after the infant was freed, the two adults were pulled from the half-flattened building and rushed to ambulances as onlookers clapped and cheered. The mother had been semiconscious, but woke up when rescuers arrived, Direk said.
Firefighters and rescuers ordered silence while they listened for noise from other possible survivors in the five-story apartment block, but workers could not find the baby’s father and there were no other signs of life, Direk said.
He said he chatted with the mother while trying to get her out, at one point jokingly suggesting she name the baby after his own son, Cagan.
“She replied that the baby was a girl, and that she wanted her named Azra,” he said.
The family live in Sivas in central Turkey but were visiting the girl’s grandparents in Ercis, the Hurriyet newspaper reported.
It was not clear whether her mother was able to nurse Azra, but “if the mother was able to keep the baby warm by using her own body, that would be good enough,” said Gerald Rockenshaub, disaster response manager at the World Health Organization.
He said the first 48 to 72 hours are crucial for rescues and the chances of finding survivors decrease significantly after that. People can survive without food for a week or so, but having access to water is critical, especially for the elderly and infants, he said.
A 9-year-old boy who was rescued earlier along with his sister and cousin, waited anxiously Tuesday at the pile of debris that used to be his aunt’s apartment block for news of his parents or other relatives buried inside.
“They should send more people,” Oguz Isler said as a cousin comforted him.
Rescue workers searched through the debris, using excavators, picks and shovels. Dogs sniffed for possible survivors. Mehmet Ali Hekimoglu, a medic, said the dogs indicated there were three or four people inside the building, but it was not known if they were alive.
Oguz, his sister and a cousin were trapped in the building’s third-floor stairway as they tried to escape after the quake hit. A steel door fell over him.
“I fell on the ground face down. When I tried to move my head, it hit the door,” he said. “I tried to get out and was able to open a gap with my fists in the wall but could not move my body further.”
He said they shouted for help, and were pulled out more than eight hours later.
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.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul said he will visit the earthquake-struck eastern province of Van.
“Our brothers in Van will see that they are never alone,” Gul said in televised comments from Ankara. “I don’t want to disrupt our emergency workers in the region, therefore I will wait a little bit longer and go there as soon as possible.”
Gul said he is also considering canceling Saturday celebrations to mark the 88th anniversary of the republic’s founding.
Information for this article was contributed from Ercis by Selcan Hacaoglu and Suzan Frazer and from Istanbul by Christopher Torchia of The Associated Press; from Istanbul by Sebnem Arsu of The New York Times; and from Ankara by Emre Peker of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/26/2011