Videos: Powerful 7.2-Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Eastern Turkey

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It was the nation's most powerful quake in at least a decade, and those that had cameras rolling as the earth trembled captured quite a harrowing scene.

Turkey is particularly prone to earthquakes, resting directly on a number of volatile fault lines. Sunday's earthquake, which initially measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, struck a mountainous, poor region of eastern Turkey. The epicenter, according to the USGS, was located 9 miles northeast of Van.

Ercis, a town of 75,000 near the Iranian border, was among the hardest hit by the quake. Turkish television shows buildings collapsed into piles of concrete, with rescuers flocking to the scene to dig through the rubble. Reports from Ercis put the initial death toll at 45. "There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed. There is too much destruction," Ercis mayor Zulfikar Arapoglu told NTV television. "We need urgent aid. We need medics."

According to the Turkish Red Crescent, 80 apartment buildings and a student dormitory collapsed in Ercis, on the north shore of Lake Van. Rescuers and citizens flocked to the building to pull out survivors. Ten buildings are reported to have fallen in Van, near the epicenter. A highway is also said to have caved in.

Sky Turk's coverage from Ercis shows people flooding the streets, many stunned by the scene that continues to unravel. Many who remained safe in the wake of the quake and its aftershocks immediately swarmed the buildings that collapsed, attempting to rescue any survivors.

A total of 60 bodies have been found so far, but that toll is expected to rise. Scientists were cautious in saying as many as 1,000 could have died in the violent temblor. "We are estimating a death toll between 500 and 1,000," Mustafa Erdik, head of the Kandilli observatory, told a televised news conference.

The quake, which struck at 10:41 a.m. local time, was listed at a depth of 12.4 miles. Aftershocks have continued to rock the region as the cleanup effort unfolded. The USGS reported up to eight aftershocks within three hours of the initial quake, measuring up to a magnitude of 5.6.

Nick Carbone is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @nickcarbone. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Dozens die as quake rocks Turkey

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23 October 2011 Last updated at 22:27 GMT BBC reporter David O'Byrne: "There are people trapped under the rubble"

A strong quake has shattered buildings near the Turkish city of Van, killing at least 138 people and trapping an unknown number under rubble.

Casualties are reported to be particularly high in the town of Ercis, close to the Iranian border, where dozens of buildings fell.

Reports spoke of thousands of residents running screaming in the streets.

Fears rose of a death toll in the hundreds as rescuers worked into the night to find survivors.

Some were seen digging through rubble with shovels or their bare hands.

Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines.

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.

'One thousand buildings'

The earthquake struck at 13:41 (10:41 GMT) at a depth of 20km (12.4 miles), with its epicentre 16km north-east of Van in eastern Turkey, the US Geological Survey said.

It was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks, also centred north of Van, including two of magnitude 5.6 soon after the quake and one of 6.0 late on Sunday.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is visiting the Van region, said 138 people had been killed, 45 of them in the town of Ercis and 93 in Van.

He said about another 350 people had been injured, but other officials gave higher casualty figures.

Up to 80 buildings, including a dormitory, collapsed in the town about 60km north of Van, while 10 fell in Van itself.

Town mayor Zulfikar Arapoglu appealed for help. "We need urgent aid, we need medics," he said.

Ambulances, soldiers and rescue teams rushed to the town, a Reuters photographer reported from Ercis.

Survivors complained of a lack of heavy machinery to remove chunks of cement floors that had pancaked on to each other, the Associated Press reports.

Serious damage and casualties were also reported in the district of Celebibag, near Ercis.

"There are many people under the rubble," said the local mayor, Veysel Keser.

"People are in agony, we can hear their screams for help. We need urgent help."

The head of Turkey's seismology institute said hundreds of people could have been killed.

"We estimate around 1,000 buildings are damaged and our estimate is for hundreds of lives lost - it could be 500 or 1,000," said Mustafa Erdik, general manager of the Kandilli Observatory.

Night search

As evening fell, residents of Van and Ercis lit camp fires, preparing to spend the night outdoors.

Rescuers could be seen working by torchlight, using their hands and shovels.

Temperatures were expected to drop to near freezing overnight. The quake cut electricity and telephone lines and the authorities in some areas have cut gas to avoid the risk of fire.

The BBC's David O'Byrne, in Istanbul, said more search and rescue teams were being sent from other parts of the country.

Hakki Erskoy, from the Turkish Red Crescent, said aid teams from the north and east of Turkey were being sent to the earthquake-hit area.

He said camps were being set up to shelter people and blankets, food and water were being sent along with mobile kitchens.

Military aircraft were being deployed to help with the rescue and relief efforts, Mr Erskoy told BBC World News.

However, Turkey has rejected all offers of foreign assistance, a foreign ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

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Powerful quake rocks Bali island

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13 October 2011 Last updated at 09:43 GMT Tiles and bits of masonry fell off buildings in Bali as shaking continued for several minutes A strong earthquake has shaken the Indonesian island of Bali, injuring dozens of people and sending debris crashing into the streets.

The 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck before midday, with its epicentre about 100km (62 miles) to the south-west of Denpasar, Bali's capital.

It was felt across the island and as far away as Java and Lombok.

Reports said about 50 people were injured, mostly with cuts and broken bones caused by falling debris.

In the tourist resort of Kuta, hundreds of people ran into the streets as the earth shook for several minutes.

"There was panic - everyone ran out of the buildings," Endro Tjahjono of the Bali office of Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency told AFP news agency.

"When we returned to our office building, we saw some cracks on the wall and plaster had come off the walls."

Several of those injured were students from a high school where the roof caved in, reports said.

Indonesia is located on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

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Bake sale's racial pricing rocks UC Berkeley campus

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By Emmett Berg

SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Sep 26, 2011 11:43pm EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Student Republicans at the University of California at Berkeley have stirred up the famously left-wing campus with plans for a sale of baked goods priced according to the race and gender of buyers.

A Facebook promotion of the event, set for Tuesday, has drawn cries of racism and misogyny on the social networking site, and student body president Vishalli Loomba called what the Berkeley College Republicans were doing offensive.

The school's chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, weighed in on Monday night with an open letter condemning the planned bake sale as contrary to campus "Principles of Community" that call for debate to be conducted in a respectful manner.

Organizers say their "Increase Diversity Bake Sale" is meant as satiric political commentary on newly passed legislation that would allow California's public universities to once again consider the race, gender, ethnicity and national origin of admissions applicants.

The sale is slated to take place between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. near the location of a campus phone bank set up by supporters of the bill, SB 185, to lobby for Governor Jerry Brown to sign the measure into law.

The original Facebook post for the event said pastries sold at the event would be priced at $2 each for white customers, $1.50 for buyers of Asian descent, $1 for Latinos, 75 cents for black customers and 25 cents for Native Americans. All women would get a 25 cent discount.

The post said the pricing structure was designed to "ensure the equitable distribution of BAKED GOODS to our DIVERSE! student body."

Loomba said Berkeley "students are talking about this everywhere I go."

"They've been able to get a lot of publicity, but at what cost? They are creating an environment of divisiveness," she told Reuters. "You can't justify doing something this offensive and making students of this school feel uncomfortable."

BALLOT MEASURE

While enactment of SB 185 does not require university admissions officers to give preferential treatment to applicants on the basis of race or gender, it would allow them to consider such factors.

A statewide ballot measure approved by California voters in 1996 banned the use of race and gender preferences in state university admissions, hiring and contracting. The California Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality last August.

SB 185 was presented to Brown on September 9 and becomes law in 30 days even without his signature, unless he vetoes it.

Berkeley's student government passed a resolution in support of SB 185 last week, and organized the telephone lobbying effort on its behalf, prompting the Berkeley College Republicans to plan their bake sale.

On Sunday, the student government unanimously passed a resolution decrying the College Republicans' move.

In his letter Monday night, the chancellor said the issue was not the group's opinions, but how they were expressed.

"The issue is not whether one thinks an action is satirical or inoffensive, the issue is whether community members will be intentionally -- or unintentionally -- hurt or demeaned by that action," Birgeneau wrote, adding, "intelligent debate is based on mutual respect."

Leaders of the student Republicans were not immediately available for comment. But the group's president, Shawn Lewis, said in a statement posted on its website that "physical threats" were made against organizers of the bake sale, including suggestions that cupcakes would be purchased and then hurled back in protest.

"Threatening and political intimidation should not be part of the (campus) community," Lewis said. "What I have seen and heard in response to the Berkeley College Republicans' 'Increase Diversity Bake Sale' has been far from healthy disagreement or challenging of ideas."

In addition to the phone bank, a free giveaway of baked goods, called Conscious Cupcakes, was planned as a riposte to the College Republicans' sale. Conscious Cupcakes' Facebook page indicated "641 attending."

(Additional reporting by Greg Lucas in Sacramento, Editing by Steve Gorman and Cynthia Johnston)

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