VAN, Turkey – An aid truck carrying items donated by people across Turkey to help victims of the recent earthquake was stopped and looted during a live broadcast Wednesday.
Looters, including women and children, stopped the truck en route to Van, eastern Turkey, and were seen filling their own cars with the supplies, the Hurriyet Daily News reported.
Van deputy mayor Dogar said, during the CNNTurk broadcast, that gangs formed around the city after the devastating earthquake and that none of the people involved "looked like locals" to him.
It comes as many survivors of the magnitude 7.2 earthquake, which hit eastern Turkey on Sunday, criticized the government over the speed of the relief effort.
"People aren't receiving the help they need from disaster coordination centers," the head of Karaagac village, in the quake zone, told the newspaper. "We fear they will lynch us because of it, so we cannot return to our villages."
The official tolls stood at 461 dead and 1,350 injured as of Wednesday, although the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that "hundreds, possibly thousands" of people still were trapped under the rubble, according to AFP.
Meanwhile, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted some early failures in his government's relief response but said the situation was under control. "We accept that there were some failures within the first 24 hours," he said in televised remarks.
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