Update: Powerful Quake Kills 258 In Turkey...08/17/99
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - A powerful earthquake shook western Turkey's most populated cities early Tuesday, killing at least 258 people and injuring 2,500 as it collapsed tall buildings and homes, news reports and officials said. Many people were buried beneath rubble of dozens of collapsed buildings in Istanbul, state TV said. Authorities recovered 40 bodies from the debris and put the injury toll there at 500. Rescuers rushed survivors to hospitals. "They can hear the voices of my mother and sister but know nothing about my father and brother," said Arsu Yilmaz as she watched rescue workers digging at a building in Avcilar district. A 5-year-old girl was extracted from the rubble unharmed. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. revised its estimate of the quake's magnitude upward to 7.8, making it nearly as powerful as the 7.9-magnitude San Francisco quake, which killed 700 people in 1906.