Turkey: Buried Alive

In quake-ravaged Turkey, tales of death, destruction and survival bring home a tragedy beyond comprehension

Every hour counts when people are buried alive. At 3:02 a.m. last Tuesday, the ground shook violently for 45 sec. under northwestern Turkey, entombing tens of thousands of sleeping families. When dawn broke, the fierce August sun burned down on hundreds of square miles of earthquake-ravaged cities and towns. The densely populated industrial heartland of the country lay in ruin, some 40,000 buildings smashed by nature's power into mountains of shattered concrete and sharp, mangled steel. Ghostly voices cried out from dark holes beneath the rubble, pleading for rescue.

In the race to save the living, men with bulldozers and jackhammers...

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