Turkey earthquake: Survivors outdoors on freezing night

Rescue teams have continued to search for survivors under the rubble of hundreds of collapsed buildings, BBC News reports.

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said 279 people had died and 1,300 were injured, most of them in the cities of Van and Ercis, near the Iranian border.

With hundreds of people missing, the death toll is expected to rise.

Ercis, population about 75,000, has been the worst hit, with some 80 collapsed buildings.

The BBC's Daniel Sandford, in Ercis, says most of those destroyed buildings are apartment blocks with dozens of people missing at each site.

Both Ercis and the larger city of Van, about 100km (60 miles) to the south, lie on a high plateau surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

Temperatures at night, with winter closing in, dip below freezing.

Rescuers say the chances of those still alive beneath the rubble surviving another night are fading, our correspondent reports.

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