anna bell roberts, nbc news, london. >> got to love that story.y news for this saturday. i'm lester holt reporting from new york. i'll see you tomorrow morning on "today" and right back here tomorrow evening. "today" and right back here tomorrow evening. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com #

the details from nbc's anna bell roberts following this from london. anna belle, where did this happen and how much damage is there? >> reporter: alex, it happened in the far eastern province in turkey up by the iranian border. the magnitude of the quake, the preliminary estimate is 7.2. now, that is pretty high. but, of course, as you know, what really matters is how densely populated the area is and how robust the construction is. how quickly the buildings collapse or if they can resist. as you can see from the pictures, it seems like this quake has caused quite a lot of damage. as you said, preliminary reports suggested about 45 buildings have collapsed in this city alone. local people have been trying to reach those trapped in some areas, they've been digging with their bare hands to try and reach any people underneath of the rubble. so, clearly, there's not much equipment on the scene yet to help with the search. the mayor of one town is quoted as saying, this is moving, there are so many dead, there is so much destruction. phone lines are jammed a