A 19-year-old earthquake survivor covers her face from the sun as rescue workers drag her out of a collapsed apartment building in Golcuk on Saturday    GALLERIES: A country lies shattered The story of a rescue VIDEO Wade Medlock reports that dehydration kills many quake victims after 72 hours, but some beat the odds (Aug. 21) Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Ben Wedeman reports that for each rescue, hundreds more corpses are being discovered (Aug. 21) Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Jerrold Kessel reports six people were pulled from the rubble of Tuesday's earthquake (Aug. 21) Windows Media 28K 80K INTERACTIVE: Chronology of major earthquakes over the last 20 years MESSAGE BOARDS: Turkey Quake RELATED AUDIO Click here to listen to reactions to the earthquake in Turkey

August 22, 1999
Web posted at: 2:42 a.m. EDT (0642 GMT)

In this story: Rescued include very young, very old Threat of disease adds to nightmare Deadly health risks posed 19,000 tents up; 20,000 more needed RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

GOLCUK, Turkey (CNN) -- With only six survivors rescued Saturday and hopes dimming that more would be found, emergency relief officials began concentrating efforts on sheltering hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by Turkey's massive earthquake.

The official death toll from Tuesday's quake topped 12,000 by late Saturday, but rescuers pulled at least six more people alive from beneath mountains of rubble in western Turkey.

The United Nations said that it feared the death toll would eventually rise to more than 40,000, with most of the victims buried under tons of twisted steel and crumbling concrete.

Experts say people trapped in such situations usually die of dehydration within 72 hours, which in this case passed Friday morning. People in similar instances, however, have survived for as long as 10 days.

Rescued include very young, very old

Saturday's flurry of miraculous rescues began on the Sea of Marmara, where a 10-year-old Israeli girl was pulled from the wreckage of her family's vacation home in Cinarcik. Doctors said Shirin Franko was "practically in very good condition" after the ordeal, asking for a soft drink after the rescue.

Her mother watched from the sidelines as an Israeli rescue team carefully extricated the girl. Earlier, they had found the body of Shirin's twin brother: Her father and two grandparents were still buried.

In nearby Yalova, another resort town, a Turkish team pulled a 95-year-old woman from the ruins of a block of holiday homes overlooking the Sea of Marmara. Officials said she was very weak, but alive.

French and Turkish rescuers in Yalova freed an 11-year-old girl found beneath the rubble of a five-story building. Her brother and sister were dead.

In Golcuk, further down the coast, a French team aided by Turkish volunteers rescued sisters, 10 and 19. The rescue team was also trying to reach another woman believed to be alive in the basement of the same building.

And west of Golcuk, a Greek rescue team took 17 hours to rescue a 9-year-old boy in Degirmendere.

Threat of disease adds to nightmare

But among those few glimmers of hope and survival, the images of death were almost overwhelming. In Golcuk and other towns in western Turkey, bulldozers ripped open trenches in cornfields as emergency crews piled bodies into mass graves.

The official death toll stood at 12,025 late Saturday, with more than 34,000 injured. Tens of thousands were still missing, and authorities expect most will be found dead beneath the ruins of their homes. Officials feared outbreaks of disease could drive the death toll even higher.

Reaching both the survivors and the dead in the sweltering summer heat has been a slow and tedious process. A lack of clean water and toilets, officials said, put the area at risk for outbreaks of disease.

Deadly health risks posed

Medical teams were immunizing rescue workers against typhoid and warning of health dangers as more bodies were pulled from the rubble. Smashed sewage lines and the thousands of homeless living on garbage-strewn streets without portable toilets or fresh water compounded the risk of cholera and other infectious diseases.

Officials in Golcuk have decided to quarantine parts of the city to avoid the spread of disease. But in the particularly hard hit Adapazari region, several new cases of dysentery were reported Saturday.

Rescue officials said there was no drinkable water in Yalova. In Izmit and Bursa, medicine, milk and food were the biggest needs; and in Golcuk, calls were made for medicine, especially antibiotics. With temperatures soaring into the 90s and corpses piling up, rescue crews wore surgical masks to fend off the overbearing stench.

The prime minister's crisis office said medical teams had begun picking up garbage, spraying disinfectants and distributing water purification tablets.

"There are many people, animals and food under the debris," said Health Ministry official Rifat Kose. "An epidemic could occur as they decay, but we are taking necessary measures."

19,000 tents up; 20,000 more needed

The Turkish government has taken a great deal of criticism over its response to the disaster -- and its role in allowing contractors to set up buildings unable to withstand the shock of a powerful earthquake.

Police and military personnel have been largely absent from the streets of damaged towns, but on Saturday they were beginning to organize the clean-up and rescue efforts.

A prayer is recited for the dead at a new graveyard outside of Golcuk

A total of 19,000 tents were set up in the most devastated areas. At least 20,000 more were needed, and the United Nations planned to provide 70 percent of them, field worker Ziya Gokmen said.

"The building of tents will be our next big effort," U.N. official Jesper Holmer Lund told reporters.

Rescuers have begun setting up tent cities to house those left homeless by Tuesday's magnitude 7.4 quake and others who fear their homes cannot withstand aftershocks, some of which were felt in Istanbul early Sunday.

Tens of thousands of homes were demolished or rendered uninhabitable.

In a rare instance of bright news for the Turkish government, the general manager of the country's largest oil refinery reported that a fire raging at the facility since Tuesday had been extinguished.

Correspondents Jerrold Kessel and Jim Bitterman, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.