7.2-mag earthquake strikes Turkey; 138 dead
from CBS, reported a last updated 6:25 p.m. ET
A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Sunday, killing more than 138 people and sparking widespread panic as it collapsed dozens of buildings into piles of twisted steel and chunks of concrete.
CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports that the ground shook for thirty seconds. The quake was strong enough to cause serious damage, and be felt over an area of hundreds of square miles. It was also shallow enough — about fifteen miles below the surface — to cause maximum casualties, and panic among local residents.
Tens of thousands of residents fled into the streets running, screaming and trying to reach relatives on cell phones. As the full extent of the damage became clear, desperate survivors dug into the rubble with their bare hands, trying to rescue the trapped and the injured.

“My wife and child are inside! My 4-month-old baby is inside!” CNN-Turk television showed one young man sobbing outside a collapsed building in Van, the provincial capital.
The quake hit Turkey’s mountainous eastern region at 1:41 p.m. with an epicenter in the village of Tabanli, 10 miles from Van, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
picture from CBS