IZMIR (REUTERS, NYTIMES) - A mother and three of her children were pulled to safety on Saturday (Oct 31) after being trapped for almost 18 hours under a building in the western Turkish city of Izmir that was flattened in a powerful earthquake.

Rescuers were continuing efforts to free the woman's fourth child, as the Aegean port city's major said around 180 people remained trapped.

"In the meantime, we are delighted to be hearing miracles happening as a result of diligent work by rescue teams," Mayor Tunc Soyer told television channel Fox TV.

Friday's 7.0 magnitude quake killed 26 people in Turkey and two on the Greek island of Samos, officials said.

It destroyed at least 20 buildings in Izmir, causing panic in the city and setting off tidal waves that slammed into coastal areas and islands.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, speaking in a televised address, said 885 people were injured, 15 of them critically.

In Izmir, the rescue work was punctuated by frequent aftershocks, of which Turkey's disaster agency recorded around 520.

By Saturday afternoon search operations had been completed in eight buildings and were continuing in nine others, officials said. One resident said both her parents were still trapped.

"I couldn't get any news. I couldn't get any news," the woman told Reuters, when asked about attempts to reach them.

As bulldozers removed debris from collapsed buildings while rescuers dismantled walls by hand, Environment Minister Murat Kurum said some 100 people had been rescued so far.

The first 300 of 900 tents provided for those made homeless were erected in the city.

The leaders of Turkey and Greece - caught up in a bitter dispute over exploration rights in the eastern Mediterranean - spoke by phone late on Friday.

In a rare show of warmth between the two countries, Turkish and Greek leaders exchanged solidarity messages.

"I just called President (Tayyip Erdogan) to offer my condolences for the tragic loss of life from the earthquake that struck both our countries. Whatever our differences, these are times when our people need to stand together," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted.

Erdogan responded in a tweet: "I offer my condolences to all of Greece on behalf of myself and the Turkish people. Turkey, too, is always ready to help Greece heal its wounds. That two neighbours show solidarity in difficult times is more valuable than many things in life."

Turkey is crossed by fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. Cooperation between the two countries after a devastating earthquake in 1999 led to a period of warmer ties between them.

Gulen Kurtcebe, who was at a market in Izmir when she felt the tremors, said that local residents were accustomed to earthquakes but "this was different."

Initially, she said, she thought she was having a dizzy spell, but then a woman nearby started screaming, "Earthquake!" "At that moment, we all started to run," she said.

In Seferihisar, a town near Izmir, video showed seawater flooding a shoreline neighbourhood. Yasar Keles, a local official, said a woman in a wheelchair drowned as the waves hit.

"I saw five, six cars in the sea, and more than 50 yachts washed up on the shore," he said in a phone interview. Some of the vessels, pulled from their anchors, had sunk.

On the Greek island of Samos, residents also poured into the streets, with many posting photos and videos to social media that showed flooding in the main port. State television reported that two teenagers, 15 and 17, were killed after being crushed under a collapsed wall in the main town on Samos.

"Words are too poor to describe how one feels faced with the loss of these children," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece said in a post on Twitter.

The deputy mayor of Samos, Giorgos Dionysiou, described "scenes of chaos" on the island in comments carried by several Greek news websites. "People are panicking and have run out onto the streets," he said. "We've never seen anything like this."

He said that several buildings had been damaged, mainly older ones.