Poland offers help after deadly earthquake rocks eastern Turkey

photo - EPA/Tolga Bozoglu

“Poland has already informed the EU's [Civil Protection] Monitoring and Information Centre that it is ready to send a group of experts. Now we are waiting for Turkey to determine what it needs - whether it needs rescuers or only humanitarian aid,” PM Tusk said in Brussels yesterday.

The quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale occurred at 12.41 CET, Sunday, 17 kilometers north of the eastern city of Van.

Turkey's Interior Ministry has informed that at least 200 people have died with 1000 injured. Thousands had to sleep out in the open last night in fear of collapsing building.

Aftershocks have hindered rescue operations.

Poland's fire fighters have special UN certificates authorizing them to assist in such operations. The units would include personnel from fire fighting branches in the cities of Gdansk, Nowy Sącz, Poznan, Warsaw and Lodz and would include up to 12 especially trained sniffer dogs.

Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thanked countries offering help but said that, for now, Turkey can cope on its own.

Two earthquakes in 1999 with a magnitude of more than 7 killed almost 20,000 people in densely populated parts of the north-west of the country. (pg)