Turkey: Police, Kurds Clash Over Earthquake Rescue Effort

BINGOL, Turkey – Police fired warning shots Friday as angry Kurds (search) stoned official vehicles to protest a shortage of earthquake relief supplies while searchers pressed the hunt for children still buried in a collapsed school dormitory.

One boy was pulled alive from the rubble Friday morning, 30 hours after the quake, but funerals began for dozens of youngsters already found dead.

With no further evident in the debris of the four-story building, searchers began using cranes and heavy equipment to work through the debris despite protests from parents.

"God took him, why are you cutting him into pieces?" screamed Fethi Ketenalp, the father of a missing 14-year-old who threw himself in front of a crane.

Although sniffer dogs and electronic listening equipment had not located any survivors since morning, searchers said they still harbored hope. People can live for several days trapped under debris.

"This is still a seaorch and rescue operation," insisted Ahmet Aydin, in charge of the emergency center at the site in Celtiksuyu, a village outside Bingol (search).

By Friday evening, 32 students were listed as missing, after 117 had been rescued and 49 found dead, officials said. The children, ages 7 to 16, were mostly from poor Kurdish farming families and lived at the school because they had no way to get back and forth from their villages.

Overall, the confirmed death toll from Thursday's quake rose to 127, and about 1,000 people were injured. It was not clear if the official figures took into account the latest bodies extracted from the dormitory.

In villages across the area, Friday was a day of mourning and burials. Kurdish farmers in Kardeslerkoyu wailed as they carried the white-shrouded body of Erhan Berk, a chubby 14-year-old who was found dead in the dormitory's debris earlier in the day.

Thousands were left homeless by Thursday's 6.4 magnitude quake and anger over the lack of tents, food and water erupted into violent clashes in Bingol, a predominantly Kurdish city of 250,000 people.

Police fired automatic rifles into the air to disperse demonstrators who demanded the resignation of Bingol Gov. Huseyin Avni Cos (search) and threw stones at the governor's office.

Anger worsened after a police van injured several protesters by speeding through the crowd. Clashes spread to side streets, where young Kurds tore up chunks of pavement to throw at police cars and armored vehicles. Policemen wearing masks ran through the streets firing automatic weapons into the air.

At least five policemen and three journalists were injured and several protesters were detained, the governor said.

A few hundred army commandos with armored personnel carriers mounting machine guns deployed around the governor's office Friday night. Soldiers patrolled the city center, and police withdrew in an apparent effort to lessen tensions.

There is deep distrust between Kurds and security forces in Turkey's east after a 15-year Kurdish rebellion and ensuing government crackdown that resulted in 37,000 dead and the displacement of millions.

Turkish officials accused Kurdish rebels of infiltrating the demonstrations in an effort to use the quake to raise tensions. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the clashes were "acts of serious provocation and exploitation."

The Turkish Red Crescent has sent 3,700 tents and 13,000 blankets to the region, but the governor said he hadn't distributed most of them because he wanted a fair distribution. Cos said 20,000 more tents were needed. Food and drinking water were also insufficient, officials said.

"We just came here to get tents, but they started firing on us," said one protester, Ramazan Yararli.

At least a half dozen countries have offered aid, but Turkey's government so far has said it does not need any help.

At the wrecked dormitory, many people vented anger at the quality of the building. Public Works and Housing Minister Zeki Ergezen said the contractor who built it was under investigation.

"Murderers," shouted Gazal Gunalan, whose 15-year-old son, Mehmet, was still buried in the rubble. "Look at this building. It is the bad construction that took the lives of our children."

Gunalan said she had lost all hope. "I have been sitting here since yesterday morning," she said. "I was expecting him to come out alive ... now I'm waiting for his body."