EAST Lancashire firefighters just back from the Turkish disaster zone after helping with the horror of last week's earthquake today warned: "There could be worse to come."

Thousands of people are now living on the streets in freezing conditions and seismic readings in the Istanbul area suggest that another major quake could hit the region within the next week.

The Lancashire members of the UK Fire Service Search and Rescue Team returned home to re-stock their supplies in case they are needed again.

The team was alerted to last week's eartquake by a mercy call from a Turkish citizen, it was revealed today.

Blackburn-based station officer Andy Barnes took a personal telephone call from an interpreter he had met while helping the relief effort following August's earthquake in Turkey.

The early call meant that Andy, from Oswaldtwistle, and six Lancashire-based colleagues from the UK Fire Service Search and Rescue Team were able to rapidly organise a flight with the RAF to the disaster zone, centred on the town of Duzce, 115 miles east of Istanbul.

The Lancashire team, who flew out on Saturday, also included Firefighter Colin Western of Oswaldtwistle, based at Blackburn, Station Officer Colin Byers of Ribchester, who is based at Euxton, Chorley, and Leading Firefighter Ged Richmond from Burnley, who also works at Euxton.

They flew home yesterday.

Colin said they arrived to find complete devastation, including buildings leaning precariously and thousands of people living on the streets after their homes were destroyed. They were unable to find any survivors but did recover bodies from the rubble of poorly-constructed buildings.

Colin said: "The number of people dead and injured wasn't as high as in August but the situation they are left with is the same. Thousands of people are homeless. In August at least the weather was good but now, at night it is freezing and just before we left it started to rain so you have this freezing rain falling."

Several tremors hit the region while the men were working.

The earthquake measured 7.2 on the Richter scale. The death toll so far is more than 550 and 80,000 people are thought to living in the streets without any shelter.

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