HOLIDAYMAKERS in East Lancashire are still going ahead with plans for trips to Turkey, despite two earthquakes which have left 144 people dead.

Four travel agents from East Lancashire all said none of their customers had asked to cancel or transfer holidays to a different destination.

Just over a week ago, Adana and Ceyhan in southern Turkey, were affected by a 6.3 earthquake which destroyed about 450 homes and injured about 1,500.

Since then, more than 70 aftershocks have been experienced in the region and a further quake affected a larger section of Adana, which has a population of one million.

But holidaymakers seem unconcerned by the natural disasters and are still going ahead with travel plans for their weeks in the sun.

At Thomas Cook in Blackburn, travel consultant Joanne Greaves said the tour operators had not sent any emergency notification to say there was a problem in any of the resorts.

In Burnley's Lunn Poly shop, Janet Sharples, sales adviser, said she was planning to holiday in Turkey in a couple of weeks.

She said: "We have had no cancellations and I don't know of anyone ringing up concerned about the earthquakes."

In Accrington at Althams, clerk Keri Lord said: "The location of the earthquakes is hundreds of miles from the main resorts and so it has not affected where people are going.

"We have not had anybody cancelling their holiday."

The picture was the same at Co-op Tavelcare in Colne.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.