ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit on Monday said the death toll from the earthquake near the central Anatolian city of Afyon had reached 44 people with another 318 people injured.
Sunday's quake measured 6.0 on the Richter scale and devastated three towns in the Afyon region, destroying more than 600 homes and damaging 100 other buildings in the area. Rescue workers completed their search for victims Sunday night after retrieving bodies from under the collapsed buildings, officials said. Hundreds of cattle and sheep were also perished during the quake.
Ecevit said no international help was needed and he thanked countries who had offered emergency aid.
Istanbul's Kandilli Observatory chief warned people not to enter buildings because after shocks could continue for some time and structures that sustained cracks could fall during even a small tremor.
"Since the massive 6 magnitude tremor, there had been 493 after shocks, some as powerful as the preliminary magnitude of 5 that occurred in the area," Mete Isikara said. Village homes made with sun-dried bricks that collapsed during the quake caused many of the fatalities, Isikara said.
He urged the government to extend low-interest loans to people in the villages to allow them to rebuild their houses. "We have to live with the fact that Turkey lies on the quake zone," he said.
Sunday night, more than 32,000 tents were rushed to the area to shelter people from the severe cold and additional emergency aid was en route, officials said. In addition, the Turkish Red Crescent sent a large number of blankets and canister stoves for heating and set up mobile kitchens at certain points to serve food to the quake victims.
