earthquake. dozens of buildings destroyed and hundreds feared dead after a devastating 7.2 magnitude quake. tonight, the latest from turkey. liberation day in libya. the official beginning of a post gadhafi era, as questions remain about the death of a dictator. shark attack. new details tonight from australia about the american man killed by a great white shark. high anxiety. what is behind a dramatic increase in the use of antidepressants, especially among women. and the great pumpkin, one man sharing the symbol of the season and making a very big difference. captions paid for by nbc-universal television

good evening. in eastern turkey tonight, some people are digging with their hands in a desperate search for the living after a deadly earthquake jolted the region this afternoon. the quake with a magnitude of 7.2 was centered close to the iranian border near the city of van, but caused damage across a wide area. scores of buildings have collapsed, trapping an unknown number of people. said the mayor of one hard hit town, people are in agony. we can hear their screams. at least 138 people are dead. but that number is expected to quickly and dramatically climb. nbc's ana bell roberts is following developments for us from london tonight with this report. >> reporter: it may be night, but the rescue work continues. local people join the overwhelmed emergency crews to dig through the rubble in the hopes of finding survivors. and they do, a young woman grimacing with pain. she's raised on a stretcher and

carried to an ambulance. one life saved is a triumph. but many more lie buried and the challenge is to reach them fast. the nights are cold, the temperature falls below freezing, extremely harsh conditions for anyone trapped overnight. they dig with bare hands. impossible to give up hope, almost impossible to get through the debris. the quake struck at lunch time, people ran on to the streets in panic. a series of aftershocks followed. at least 21, the strongest with a magnitude of 6. >> turkey, like california, japan, it sitting at a what is called a plate boundary. this is an area with multiple faults and very complex pattern. we can already see that some of the aftershocks are probably on different faults than on the main shock. >> reporter: in spite of the known risks, construction work can be shoddy. officials fear as many as a thousand could be dead.

the red cross say many are trapped. >> we have seen a lot of buildings just collapsed like pancakes, which would have been extremely dangerous to people inside them at the time. >> reporter: but they rescued two people, this man says, they were injured but four more people are trapped under the rubble. not knowing about loved ones is devastating. we went to all the hospitals, but haven't been able to find our friend, he says. i pray to god our friend has survived. there are calls for tents and blankets. more rescue teams are on their way, but roads are blocked. it will take time. and time truly matters for those trapped tonight. annabelle roberts, nbc news, london. libya's interim leader declared this a new day, celebrating liberation after eight months of civil war and decades of oppression under moammar gadhafi. at the same time, charting the course to democracy, based in islamic law. but as the country's new founding fathers look forward, the u.s. among other countries is calling for some

accountability to the past and the question of how gadhafi died. nbc's adrian among reports from misrata. >> reporter: a sea of red, black and green flooded benghazi's main square, the site where libya's uprising began eight months ago. hundreds of thousands celebrating liberation from 42 years of rule under moammar gadhafi. the leader of a transitional government thanked rebel forces for winning the war and stressed the need for tolerance and reconciliation among the different tribes. casting a shadow on the celebrations, however, questions still over gadhafi's death. as his corpse lay in misyacht for a third day, an autopsy confirmed he died from a bullet to the head no other details have been released. amateur video continues to emerge, showing his last chaotic moments alive. in another piece of new footage, a rebel soldier grass pz tps off

gadhafi's alleged killer saying, he's the guy that killed him. the u.s. and other nations are urging thorough investigations. >> i think it is important that this new government, this effort to have a democratic libya start with the rule of law, start with accountability. >> reporter: fighters from the unit that found gadhafi in a drain pipe in his home on thursday said they don't care about how or when he died. the important thing, they say, is that he was caught. towards the end, the eccentric former leader was said to be growing impatient with life on the run. fighters who seized him said he refused to believe his time was up. in misrata, which put up some of the fiercest fighting against gadhafi's troops earlier this year, thousands of people again crowded into the recently renamed freedom square. some of them said they wanted to look forward, not backwards. >> now you have to look about the future. >> reporter: today's declaration of liberation sets in motion a

process that will ultimately end in the nation's first free election. already there is a sign of what a new and free libya will look like, transitional leaders have said that islamic sharia law will form the basis for all legislation. adri adrian mong, nbc news, libya. it was a month long uprising in tunisia that marked the beginning of the arab spring movement and led to the overthrow of that country's long time leader. today the people of tunisia voted in their first truly free elections. they're electing a national acemace aassembly that will elect a new government and write a new constitution. the turnout was close to 70%. the voting is expected to favor a long ban islamist party. president obama's foreign policy had democrats and republicans battling it out today. nbc's kristen welker is at the white house to tell us more. kristen? >> reporter: good evening, lester. in addition to foreign policy, republican candidates were also

fighting amongst themselves in iowa this weekend, over who is the most socially conservative. meantime, secretary of state hillary clinton had tough words for iran. making the rounds on the morning talk shows, secretary of state hillary clinton cast president obama as a leader on foreign policy. >> president obama has passed with flying colors every leadership challenge. >> reporter: and she smacked down republican claims that pulling all u.s. troops out of iraq would leave the country vulnerable to iran. >> iran would be badly miscalculating if they did not look at the entire region and all of our presence in many countries in the region. >> reporter: but republicans kept up their steady stream of attacks, calling the president's foreign policy politically driven. >> i would argue that iraq and afghanistan is being run out of chicago, not washington. >> reporter: with the gop presidential contenders trying to draw a sharp contrast with president obama on iraq. >> we're leaving and we're

leaving behind a situation where iran has just dramatically grown in influence in that country. >> i think it was wrong for the united states to go into libya. >> reporter: at saturday's gop forum in iowa, it wasn't foreign policy, but social issues that took center stage as candidates tried to shore up support among core conservatives, ahead of the caucuses now a little more than ten weeks away. >> being pro-life is not a matter of campaign convenience. it is a core conviction. >> reporter: rick perry took a veiled swipe at herman cain saying he's pro-life in one interview and flip-flopping in another, suggesting that abortion is a personal decision. >> if that is your view, you are not pro-life. you are pro having your cake and eating it too. >> reporter: cain, who is leading in some polls, tried to do damage control. >> i believe that abortion should be clearly stated and illegal across this country. >> reporter: vice president joe biden told cnn he's confident

about a second term and is not ruling out his own presidential run in 2016. >> you're not closing that door. >> i'm not closing anything. >> reporter: now, it seems like herman cain's new front-runner status is paying off. since the start of this month, he raised a million dollars a week, which means he has already surpassed the 2.$2.8 million th he raised all of last quarter. >> kristen welker at the white house, kristen, thanks. there is fear along the waters off southwest australia after an american man apparently became the latest victim in a series of great white shark attacks. the man's identity and new details about this weekend's attack were revealed today as we hear from nbc's mark potter. >> reporter: along the picturesque coast of southwest australia, a shark hunt is under way. and divers and swimmers are urged to be careful, following a third fatal shark attack in the last two months. the latest victim was an american, 32-year-old george thomas wainwright, an avid diver from houston, who was working in

australia. he was killed saturday apparently by a great white shark while diving alone near perth. two friends on a boat could see something was wrong. >> he floated to the surface, and the shark was leaving the area to come back. >> reporter: his friends tried to save him, but the shark bites were too severe. >> i extend my sympathy to this young man's friends and family, obviously a horrific incident and concern to australians. >> reporter: the two other incidents involved a surfer killed in early september and a morning swimmer attacked two weeks ago. there are now fears of a man eating predator on the prowl. while shark experts doubt one shark could be responsible, the latest attack led to a dramatic catch to kill order. >> within an hour of that situation occurring, the fisheries minister and state government authorized that the shark be caught and destroyed if possible. >> reporter: using helicopters, boats and bait and hooks, shark

hunters are in pursuit as others worry about revenge killings. >> it is very unlikely, exceedingly unlikely that they would actually catch that particular shark. and even if they did, how would they know it was that shark? it sounds to me like a bit of an excuse to go out there and have a lovely time killing sharks. >> reporter: normally great white sharks are a protected species in australia, but the string of fatal attacks has government and tourism officials on edge now. mark potter, nbc news, miami. in los angeles, the trial of michael jackson's doctor moves into its next phase this week as the prosecution rests and the defense begins its case. dr. conrad murray's lawyers are expected to blame the singer for his own death and claim their experts will prove it. nbc's kristen dahlgren has more tonight. >> reporter: monday morning propofol expert dr. steven shaver will be back on the stand, for three days the final prosecution witness has pointed the finger directly at dr. conrad murray for michael jackson's death. >> it is an egregious violation,

no competent physician would give these drugs without having emergency air way equipment present. >> reporter: shaffer laid out what he considers 17 violations that could have killed jackson, and showed jurors how he believed dr. murray set up an iv drip of the anesthetic propofol that ran into the singer's veins even after he died. >> this is an extremely unsafe setup. >> reporter: an aggressive and often dramatic cross examination -- >> you understand that dr. murray is literally on trial for his life. >> reporter: the defense tried to discredit dr. shaffer. >> is it opinion or isn't it? >> it is -- it is my opinion that that's what happened, that's correct. >> would you be at all surprised that there are other medical experts that would disagree with you? >> reporter: those other experts include defense witness dr. paul white, expected to say michael jackson took a fatal combination

of lorazepam and propofol himself, and that murray didn't use an iv drip of propofol. >> dr. white, who is the prosecution's professor, is going to come in and point out mistakes with dr. shaffer's testimony, that he didn't really know the drug, he didn't know the literature, and that he was making all the assumptions just of an opinion against dr. murray. >> reporter: there is no love lost between the experts. dr. white has been seen rolling his eyes in court, and faces a hearing for calling shaffer or the prosecutor a scumbag in front of reporters. but as the trial now moves towards its end, the verdict may indeed come down to these two experts, and which one the jury believes. kristen dahlgren, nbc news, los angeles. when "nbc nightly news" continues on this sunday, what is behind the soaring use of antidepressants, especially among women? and how a man with pumpkin despair is making a big difference. you want to save money on car insurance?

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taking antidepressant medicines. we asked nbc's chief science correspondent robert bazell to look behind the numbers. >> reporter: to the outside world, terry williams was a successful businesswoman. but secretly she suffered from crippling anxiety, and often couldn't get out of bed in the morning. >> it was like i was paralyzed, in tears, in a fetal position, not wanting to face the day. >> reporter: that all changed when she was diagnosed with clinical depression. she began taking antidepressants and slowly has gotten her condition under control. the 57-year-old williams is hardly alone. the cdc report finds that more than 1 in 10 americans over 12 years old takes antidepressant drugs. an increase of 400% over the past two decades. experts say there are many reasons for this sharp increase. the latest drugs are safer and more effective than earlier antidepressants. they are also used to treat

conditions such as anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. >> the acceptance in our society for getting your treatment -- getting treatment for your depression or anxiety is much, much higher. >> when you're depressed -- >> reporter: but marketing also plays a role. the survey finds that twice as many women as men take the drugs. among women 40 to 59 like miss williams, fully 23% take them. >> women are much more likely to seek help for depression and get treated than men are and in addition they're in roles as caregivers which puts them at a greater vulnerability for depression. >> reporter: despite the large numbers, experts say many people who need help are still not getting it. with only one third of those with symptoms of severe depression taking the drugs. miss williams credits a combination of talk therapy and antidepressants for her recovery. >> you know, i'm not exactly where i want to be, but thank god i'm not where i used to be.

>> reporter: the goal, experts say, is to get medications to those in need and be certain that all those who take them truly benefit. robert bazell, nbc news, new york. there is more ahead here. when we come back, the painful ripple effects of an nba season that may be lost. i know you're worried about making your savings last and having enough income when you retire. that's why i'm here. to help come up with a plan and get you on the right path. i have more than a thousand fidelity experts working with me so that i can work one-on-one with you. it's your green line. but i'll be there, every step of the way. call or come in for a free portfolio review today. lugging around a hot water extraction unit can be a rush! that's why i'm carpet for life. but if things get out of hand, there's no shame in calling us. ♪call 1-800-steemer.

in case you missed it, in last night's world series game, it wasn't one, it wasn't two, it was three, count them, three home runs for st. louis cardinals slugger albert pujols who helped drive the cards to a 2-1 lead over the rangers. pujols became the third player to hit three homers in the world series game. babe ruth did it twice in 1926 and '28 and reggie jackson did it in 1977. well, one game they won't be playing anytime soon, nba basketball. with the lockout continuing and no new talks scheduled between the players and management, the prospects for an nba season are not looking good. and that has many people fearing a devastating economic ripple effect. nbc's mike taibbi has more on that for us tonight. >> reporter: an empty quicken loans arena, home of cleveland cavaliers, headlines talking about the city losing millions in the shortened season, and

about ordinary workers contemplating the worst, workers like those at the buffalo bar. the possibility grows more likely by the day. the stalemated talks between team owner and the players they locked out are now dependent on mediation as a last hope. the first two weeks of the season already canceled with the ax poised for another whack. >> in the next couple of days, the nba could cancel what would then be the entire first month of the season. >> reporter: a shortened or canceled season would not have much effect on nba cities like new york, whose knicks are only one attraction in a city filled with sports and entertainment options. in fact, economists say the thought of a lost nba season is less than the loss of nfl season because it is a smaller and less popular sport. >> it will be a drop in the bucket. the industry is too small. >> reporter: it is not a drop in the bucket to twitter followers

who say they need nba related jobs to pay my pormortgage, cole or a car payment. >> that's the sard part here. >> reporter: while it is a fight between billionaires and millionaires, the rich pr protagonists have much to lose. some already operate in the red and megasalary players could lose a big hunk of careers that average less than five seasons. and then there is the fans. remember him? >> i can't see those players play, it is like part of my life. >> reporter: missing until further notice. mike taibbi, nbc news, new york. as you may have heard, there is a new addition to the first family of france today. carla bruni sarkozy left a paris maternity clinic with 4 day old baby julia. she is the first baby born to a sitting french president. nicolas sarkozy has three sons from two previous marriages. his wife also has a son from a previous relationship. for 125 years, the statue of

liberty, a gift from france, has been watching over new york harbor. and starting this friday, she'll be watching a little more closely as five web cams installed in her torch are switched on during a birthday ceremony. the cameras will let internet users gaze out over the harbor in real time, read the tablet in lady liberty's hands and look at visitors on the island below. up next, how a patch of pumpkins can make all the difference in the world. if shopping for insurance were like shopping for diapers, you might think all these cost about the same... protect about the same... but what if you have an accident? allstate accident forgiveness starts the day you sign up. these guys might make you wait a couple of years. we can't wait a couple years. [ babbles ] no you cannot. thanks. don't mention it. [ dennis ] shop less. get more. make one call to an allstate agent. [ female announcer ] call allstate now and you'll also get a free lifetime membership in good hands roadside assistance. i'm a dad, coach...

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pumpkins in ohio and a farmer who came up with a fun way to make a difference. nbc's ron allen reports. >> reporter: pumpkins don't really grow in urban places like patterson, new jersey. that's why there was a real frenzy when the children at this boys and girls club discovered a pumpkin patch appeared out of nowhere, in their local park. >> these kids don't see pumpkins. we don't see pumpkins. we barely see apples or bananas, but 2,000 pumpkins in our park? >> reporter: hundreds of miles away in ohio, at greg clements' farm, it was a bumper crop of pumpkins, more than what he knew to do with. >> what a smile that put on my face as a kid, so we felt with a great harvest this year, we would be able to share that. >> reporter: so operation great pumpkin began. the call went out. hundreds of volunteers showed up and formed a human pumpkin chain in the rain.

>> all for a good cause. >> reporter: the team loaded up and when the truck pulled up in new jersey, it was stocked with more than 2,000 pumpkins. >> you drove eight hours, 300, 400 miles. >> yeah. >> reporter: you could be doing other things? >> sure, yeah. absolutely. i don't think we could be doing anything else as fun as this. >> reporter: he chose new jersey because storms like hurricane irene destroyed much of the crop in this part of the country. >> you got it? >> reporter: and picked patterson because he heard the boys and girls club never had a pumpkin patch before. what are you going to do with that big pumpkin? >> make a pie. >> i'm going to decorate it. >> reporter: all of this generosity gave 10-year-old antwaan rogers an idea. >> i'm just going to try to give it to someone. >> reporter: you're going to give it to someone else. >> on my street. >> reporter: really? why? >> because they really don't have a pumpkin. i want to be thankful that i had a pumpkin, but i want to give it away. >> reporter: is that what you expected? >> yeah, it is actually the

jubilation and excitement i think is a little more, actually. >> reporter: and that's what clements says this pumpkin patch was really all about. making as many kids as possible -- >> say cheese. >> reporter: -- smile. ron allen, nbc news, patterson, new jersey. that's "nbc nightly news" for this sunday. up next, "football night in america" followed by "sunday night football," the colts versus the saints. brian williams will be here tomorrow. i'm lester holt reporting from new york. and for all of us here at nbc news, good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com