Search and rescue efforts in the disaster area have been halted temporarily due to a new avalanche alert, Karar newspaper said.
The avalanche wiped out the members of a rescue team that were searching for victims of another avalanche that happened at the same location a day earlier. Five people died in a minibus that was buried under the snow on Tuesday in Van’s Bahcesaray district.
The rescue team, which included the head of Van’s provincial disaster agency, were looking for two people who had been missing since Tuesday.
“Eight of our friends from the gendarmerie, three from the village guards, three from our fire department and nine voluntary rescue workers lost their lives,” Hurriyet quoted Van’s governor as saying.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said the death toll could rise.
“We suspect 10 to 15 of our citizens could be under the avalanche,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in an interview with A Haber, adding that some 30 to 35 people had been saved so far.
Demiroren news agency shared a video from the scene showing at least three overturned vehicles at the bottom of a hill during a snowstorm. Some rescuers struggled to climb the hill while others dug frantically in the snow with shovels and pickaxes.
Osman Uçar, the head of Van’s disaster relief agency, said while receiving treatment at hospital that he had been dragged along with an excavator that was overturned in the avalanche.
“I was half-buried,” he said, adding that he had managed to escape on his own.
Gülşen Orhan, a former lawmaker of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and an advisor of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was among those injured.
Murat Sarisaç, a lawmaker of the manly-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), told T24 news that around 60 people had been buried in the avalanche, citing information he received from the health personnel.
Turkey’s Ministry of Defence announced that it was airlifting 75 search and rescue personnel to the disaster area, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) announced that five of its lawmakers headed to Van for inspections.
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