TURKISH SPECIAL POLICE FORCE MEMBER ASKS RESIDENTS TO LEAVE THE AREA, 1999-08-20 (photo)

A Turkish special police force member wearing a medical surgical mask asks residents to leave the area as hundreds of soldiers and policemen lift the rubble from the wreckage of a five-storey apartment building in the Avcilar downtown district of Istanbul August 20. Among the hundreds of special forces and riot policemen, 2,500 soldiers, two brigades and one regiment, have also been deployed into the quake-torn Istanbul district, to help the sift through the rubble of the hundreds of apartment building devastated by the powerful early Tuesday earthquake, which killed more than 10,000 people and injured 45,000 in the western Turkish cities and towns. FS/WS