Snowfall in quake-hit Turkey as toll passes 500

ERCIS: Snow blanketed eastern Turkey Thursday, complicating rescue efforts and bringing more misery for the thousands left homeless by a devastating earthquake as the death toll surged past 500.

Ninety-one hours after disaster struck in the eastern province of Van, rescuers pulled a 19-year-old from the rubble in the town of Ercis but the prospects of finding more people alive were fading fast.

After the government acknowledged failings in the initial rescue efforts, help from abroad was beginning to arrive, including an aid plane from Israel.

But in a sign of the disillusionment with the help they had received so far, some families who had been staying in tents began returning to their homes despite warnings that they were still at risk of collapse from aftershocks.

Many families have been forced to sleep in overcrowded tents or even out in the open around fires as the temperatures drop to below freezing.

In its latest damage assessment bulletin, the prime minister's emergency unit said that 523 people were now known to have died after the 7.2 magnitude quake struck. A further 1,650 had been injured in the disaster, it added.

A total of 185 people had been pulled out of the wreckage, officials said.

The latest survivor to have beaten the odds, a student named Mohammed, was rescued from the rubble of a five-storey building, the NTV news channel reported. He was rescued by an emergency crew who travelled to Ercis from Malatya, a distance of around 570 kilometres.

But with the hopes of finding more survivors receding, attentions were focusing increasingly on how to help those who had lost their homes. (AFP)