Ankara - The Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Bulent Ecevit, said yesterday that unclaimed corpses could cause serious health problems if they were not buried soon. He said in Ankara that the government was struggling to deal with the losses but corpses must be buried as quickly as possible.
"If this is not done, very serious health and epidemic problems could emerge. For that reason, our unclaimed citizens will be identified by photographs."
Balmy nights and summer days in the earthquake zone have already produced a stench in many of the worst hit towns. Hundreds of bodies from the city of Izmit are being kept at an ice rink as an emergency measure.
The country's top naval officer said the army was opening up cold stores to help deal with the problem.
"You have to ask what you can do to help. The morgue isn't working? Then where will we put the bodies? We put them in refrigerated trucks. They filled up. The general staff has set aside its refrigerated storage depots," Anatolian news agency quoted Admiral Salim Dervisoglu as saying.